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SCRIPTURAL VIEWS 



HOLINESS. 



BY 



W. MACDONALD, 

AUTHOR OP "KEW TESTAMENT STANDARD OF PIETY. 5 




PHILADELPHIA: 
National Pub'g Association for the Promotion op Holiness, 

921 ARCH STREET. 

J. S. INSKIP, Agent. 

1877. 



T 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by 

W. MACDONALD, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



The Library 
of Congress 

washington 



J 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
Errors Respecting Holiness 7 

CHAPTER II. 
Holiness Defined 23 

CHAPTER III. 
Holiness the Faith of the Christian Church... 38 

CHAPTER IV. 
Holiness Scriptural 56 

CHAPTER V. 
Objections to Holiness 80 

CHAPTER VI. 
Holiness Subsequent to Conversion 109 

CHAPTER VII. 

Holiness Subsequent to Conversion— The Faith 
of the Christian Church 125 

iii 



IV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEK VIII. 
Holiness Subsequent to Conversion— The Expe- 
rience of Believers 133 

CHAPTEK IX. 
Holiness Subsequent to Conversion— Scriptural 153 

CHAPTER X. 
Holiness Subsequent to Conversion — Scriptu- 
ral 174 

CHAPTER XL 
Holiness Subsequent to Conversion — Scriptu- 
ral—Objections to.. 187 

CHAPTER XII. 
Holiness — When Attained 200 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Holiness— How Attained 220 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Holiness— Evidence of its Attainment 257 

CHAPTER XV. 
Holiness— How Retained 284 



PREFACE. 



"'VTEVER, since the days of Primitive 
Christianity, has the subject of entire 
holiness attracted so much attention as at 
present. At no time have there been so 
many earnest seekers for light on the sub- 
ject of the believer's gracious privilege in 
Christ. So numerous have been the books 
published on this subject, that another 
may be thought altogether superfluous. 

While it is true that many excellent 
books have been written on the higher 
life, it is also true that the subject is an 
ocean too vast to be exhausted by taking 
from it a few buckets to irrigate the arid 
wastes w r hich meet us on every hand. 
It will require many more volumes than 
have been written to fully meet the de- 
mand. 



VI PREFACE. 



Within the past few years the public 
mind has undergone a great change on the 
subject,, It has been more generally 
preached, more widely experienced, and 
more bitterly antagonized than ever before. 
New objections have been urged against 
the doctrine, requiring new and fuller 
answers, and a more guarded statement 
of the doctrine and experience. 

For the doctrine of this volume we ask 
a careful and prayerful consideration ; for 
the literary defects, we bespeak the spirit 
of Christian charity. If this volume shall 
be the means in the hands of God of help- 
ing some soul, who is crying for a clean 
heart, into its full enjoyment, we will give 
all glory to Him whose blood cleanseth 
from all sin. 

w. Mcdonald. 



SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 



CHAPTER I. 

ERRORS RESPECTING HOLINESS. 

TT may not be out of place in the opening of 
-Mhis treatise to notice a few errors, with re- 
ference to Christian holiness, into which many 
persons fall. Some of these errors take the form 
of objections to the doctrine, while others give 
a false idea of the real work accomplished in the 
experience. 

1. They confound relative, with absolute per- 
fection. This is a common fault among those 
who oppose the possibility of such an experience 
in this life. They will have it that those who 
believe the doctrine we advocate, hold to abso- 
lute perfection, though the charge has been 
denied and the doctrine repudiated, a thousand 
times. 

7 



8 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

Absolute perfection belongs to God alone, and 
is absolute, because it is a perfection to which 
nothing can be added. It is complete in quality 
and quantity. Absolute perfection is underived, 
and exists independent of any cause. Such a 
perfection cannot be affirmed of the highest 
angel, or the brightest glorified being. 

Christian perfection is relative ; it has refer- 
ence to the perfection of God, but differs from 
it, in that it is derived, and is entirely dependent 
upon the merit of Christ. While it is like God's 
perfection in quality, it is infinitely removed from 
it in quantity. As a drop of water may be like 
the ocean, and yet almost infinitely short of being 
the ocean ; and as a ray of light may be like 
the sun, and yet almost infinitely short of being 
the sun ; so the perfection of a Christian may be 
like God's, from whom it is derived, and yet be 
infinitely short of His. In one respect they are 
alike — in quality. A Christian may u be perfect 
even as his Father which is in heaven is perfect," 
and yet that perfection be infinitely short of 
God's absolute perfection. 

Absolute perfection implies, freedom from 
mistakes, errors, and infirmities. None of these 
can exist with such a perfection. But " the high- 



ERRORS RESPECTING HOLINESS. 9 

est perfection to which man can attain, while 
the soul dwells in the body, does not exclude ig- 
norance and error, and a thousand infirmities." — 
Wesley. Ours is not an intellectual perfection ; 
if it were, it might exclude ignorance and error. 
It is simply a moral perfection, having its seat 
in the heart, not in the intellect. Hence it may 
exist with a thousand mistakes and infirmities. 
Perfection in knowledge does not belong to angels, 
much less to ignorant man. 

Why should the term perfection be objected 
to? Its use, in this connection, is not a hu- 
man arrangement ; it is in the Scriptures by 
Divine direction; and he has more presump- 
tion than Christian modesty who would substi- 
tute some other term in its place, as in his 
judgment more expressive or palatable. The 
term, when properly understood, has none of 
the objectionable characteristics which some 
imagine. They are more imaginary than real. 
Richard Hooker, defines the term thus : " We 
count those things perfect which want nothing 
requisite for the end whereunto they were insti- 
tuted." In other words, if a thing answer the 
end for which it was designed, it is perfect. The 
machine which propels a railroad train, and the 



10 SCEIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

machine which keeps in motion the thousand 
spindles of a cotton factory, are very unlike. In 
their places they are perfect, because they ac- 
complish just what they were designed to ac- 
complish. But change them, and you would at 
once witness the most imperfect arrangement. 
In like manner man, for the end for which 
God made him, may be perfect ; but foi any other 
object he is an imperfect arrangement. He could 
not, in his present state, be a perfect angel, nor a 
perfect God ; but he can be a perfect, or com- 
plete lover of the Lord, for " herein is his love 
made perfect." 

That is perfect which has what belongs to it, 
and nothing else. A perfect lamb, one suitable 
for sacrifice, according to the law, was one not 
lacking in any of its parts or members, and had 
no excrescences. " It might be fatter or leaner, 
younger or older, larger or smaller, but still the 
test of perfection was, that it had what belonged 
to it, and nothing else." 

So with the Christian. If he is complete in 
Christ, — dead unto sin and alive unto God, — 
if he is one thing — a simple, and not a com- 
pound, he is> we repeat, not a perfect God, 
nor a perfect angel, but a Christian "made 



ERRORS RESPECTING HOLINESS. 11 

perfect in love." He may not possess the same 
measure of grace which another enjoys, nor 
manifest the same external sanctity in word and 
look ; yet if the one test of perfection is found in 
him — if his heart is emptied of sin, and filled 
with love, and nothing else ; if he loves " God 
with all his heart, might, mind and strength," he 
has " perfected holiness in the fear of the Lord." 

2. A second error is that of confounding 
purity with maturity. 

There can be no doubt but what the error of 
confounding purity of heart with a mature 
Christian life has been the fruitful cause of a 
long-standing and plausible objection to instan- 
taneous and entire sanctification. 

u Is it possible," it has been asked, " for a 
believer to pass from childhood to manhood ex- 
perience instantly ? " " Can we become full- 
grown in a day ?" There can be but one answer 
to these inquiries, and that a negative one. No 
such doctrine is taught, — no such experience 
is looked for. Such misapprehension comes of 
confounding two things which the Scriptures 
and experience have always kept separate — 
purity and maturity. 

By purity of heart, we mean a heart in which 



12 SCRIPTCJKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

all the graces exist in an unmixed state. Love 
exists without any hate, faith without any un- 
belief, humility without any pride, meekness 
without any anger. These graces exist without 
alloy. This is purity of heart. 

By maturity we mean all this and much more. 
Mature has the sense of ripeness by time or 
natural growth ; as a man of mature age, or 
wheat of mature growth. In this state, love is 
not more pure, but greatly intensified. Faith is 
not freer from doubt, but possesses greater com- 
pass. It does not doubt less, but believes more. 
Humility is not more free from pride, but more 
filled with a sense of the Divine worthiness and 
of its own unworthiness. 

Purity implies something removed ; maturity, 
something added. Depravity, such as anger, 
envy and pride, is removed ; while the fulness 
of the graces, including love, joy, peace, faith, 
and patience, is indefinitely augmented. 

In purity, the soul is restored to health; 
in maturity, it knows the blessing of well-de- 
veloped manhood. The one expels all disease 
from the soul, the other builds up the soul in 
vigor and beauty. 

Purity is a proper preparation for growth; 



ERRORS RESPECTING HOLINESS. 13 

maturity is the consummation of growth. The 
one is the field cleared of noxious weeds, the 
other is the ripe waving harvest. 

Purity is instantaneous ; maturity is gradual. 
Purity is never obtained by growth, nor ma- 
turity by simple cleansing. 

Purity respects quality; maturity respects 
quantity. One drop of water is of the same 
quality as the ocean, but not the same quantity. 
One drop of grace Inay serve for our cleansing, 
but an ocean of power and blessedness is before 
us, and of its fulness we may be more and more 
the partakers. 

A young fruit tree may bear as good fruit in 
quality as a tree of older and larger growth ; 
but there is a marked difference in the quan- 
tity. The young tree may bear to the extent 
of its capacity, but enlarged capacity brings 
not larger and better fruit, but abundantly 
more of it. In like manner, a pure heart 
may bring forth all the fruits of the Spirit 
to perfection, but not in the same abundance as 
when age and long experience shall mature its 
faith and love, and strengthen all its redeemed 
powers. This doctrine is clearly taught by our 
best writers. 



14 SCRIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

" Beyond sanctification," says Dr. Dempster, 
" there is no increase of purity, but increasing 
increase in expansion.' < 

"The heart may be cleansed from all sin," 
says Bishop Hamline, " while our graces are 
immature, and the cleansing is a preparation for 
their unembarrassed and rapid growth." 

u "When inbred sin is destroyed there can be 
no increase of purity, but there may be an 
eternal increase in love, and in all the fruits of 
the Spirit." — Theological Compend. 

A pure heart may be comparatively weak in 
all the graces. It may be ignorant of many 
things relating to duty. For want of proper 
instruction it may do many things very improper 
to be done, judged of by enlightened Christian 
intelligence. Purity does not secure us from 
mistakes, and the less we know, the more mis- 
takes we shall make. Purity does not store the 
mind with Bible knowledge; that is to be secured 
by time and research. But purity will keep us 
loyal to (rod and His law. If errors have been 
committed, they have been errors of the head, 
not of the heart. "We erred, not knowing but 
we were doing right. And when the error was 
discovered, we were pained, not condemned : 



ERRORS RESPECTING HOLINESS. 15 

pained that we knew so little — justified freely, 
because we did the best we knew. Had we been 
more mature we might have done better ; had 
we been prompted in our acts by impurity, we 
should have done much worse. Purity has pre- 
served us from wrong intention, maturity might 
have preserved us from improper acts. Let no 
one be deterred from seeking heart purity, fear- 
ing that it involves so much of maturity. Seek 
a clean heart first, and look for maturity in the 
order of the Divine appointment. 

3. Another error is that of confounding im- 
parted with imputed holiness. 

One of the most dangerous errors promulga- 
ted in connection with the doctrine of heart pu- 
rity is, that man may be holy in Christ without 
being holy in himself. There is a marked differ- 
ence between being holy in ourselves and being 
holy of ourselves. The inward holiness is from 
Christ, not in Christ : we mean, not in Christ 
in the sense of not being transferred to us. 

It is claimed that we may be u complete in 
Christ, though in ourselves we are as full of sin 
as ever." A late writer describes it thus : " The 
flesh is still present in all its original sinfulness, 
and will remain unholy to the end. Sanctifica- 



16 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

tion is not the purifying of this flesh, but the 
outgrowth and development of the new man." 
{Conflict of Faith.) 

These writers contend that holiness or sanctifi- 
cation is simply the Christ- life in us, keeping 
under a perverse nature, ever present, and never 
to be removed in the present life. The " old 
man" is not dead, only "reckoned" so. Our de- 
filement is not removed, only covered. Christ 
stands between our actual pollution and God, 
so that He sees only Christ. Perfect love is not 
to be understood as our love to God made per- 
fect, but His love to us. And as Christ's love 
can never be other than perfect, whatever we 
possess of it must be perfect love. 1 John 4 : 
17 — " Herein is our love made perfect/' is said 
to be interpreted by the margin — "love with us," 
meaning, it is claimed, God's love to us, and not 
our love to Him. Dean Alford's notes on the 
passage settles this question. "This is love per- 
fected with us, not God's love to us ; this is for- 
bidden by the whole context. On the right in- 
terpretation, the confidence which we shall have 
in that day, and which we have even now by 
anticipation of that day, is the perfection of our 
love." 



ERRORS RESPECTING HOLINESS. 17 

The Scriptures clearly teach that we may be 
cleansed from the evils of the flesh. 2 Cor. 7 : 
1. " Having, therefore, these promises, dearly 
beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all fi.lth.i- 
ness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in 
the fear of the Lord." How does this accord 
with the statement that " the flesh is still pre- 
sent in all its original sinfulness, and will remain 
unholy to the end ? " The old man is to be 
" crucified " — no longer to live. The body of 
sin " is destroyed " — no longer to exist. " He 
that is dead (to sin) is freed from sin." - l Wash 
me and I shall be whiter than snow," which 
means — take away, not cover up my filthiness. 
" Create in me a clean heart," not cover my old 
one from the divine gaze by Christ's imputed 
righteousness. " From all your filthiness and 
from all your idols will I cleanse you/' not throw 
over you the cloak of Christ's spotless righteous- 
ness, that your filthiness may not be seen. 

On the subject of imputed holiness, we submit 
the substance of Mr. Fletcher's reply to the doc- 
trine in his day. It was stated and answered as 
follows : 

" We do not assert that all perfection is imagi- 
nary. Our meaning is that all Christian per- 
2 



18 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

fection is in Christ — that we are perfect in His 
person, and not in our own." 

To this Mr. Fletcher replies : " If by being 
perfect only in Christ is meant that we can at- 
tain to Christian perfection in no other way than 
by being perfectly grafted in Him, the true vine, 
and by deriving, like vigorous branches, the per- 
fect sap of His perfect righteousness, to enable 
us to bring forth fruit unto perfection, we are 
perfectly agreed ; but we perpetually assert that 
nothing but l Christ in us the hope of glory/ 
nothing but ' Christ dwelling in our hearts by 
faith/ or which is all one, nothing but the 'law 
of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus' can make us 
free from the law of sin and death, and perfect 
us in love. 

61 But as we never advanced the idea that Chris- 
tian perfection is held any other way than by 
faith that ' roots and grounds ' us in Christ, we 
suspect that some hidden error lurks under these 
equivocal phrases : i All our perfection is in 
Christ's person ; we are perfect in him, and not 
in ourselves.' 

" If it is insinuated by such language that we 
need not, cannot be perfect by an inherent per- 
sonal conformity to God's holiness, because 



EEKORS EESPECTING HOLINESS. 19 

Christ is thus perfect in us ; or should it be meant 
that we are perfect in Him, just as the sick in a 
hospital are perfectly healthy in the physician 
who gives them his attendance — as the filthy 
leper was perfectly clean in the Lord, before he 
had felt the power of Christ's gracious words — 
1 1 will, be thou clean ; ^ or as hungry Lazarus 
was perfectly fed in the person of the rich man, 
at whose gate he lay starving ; if this be the 
meaning, we are in conscience bound to oppose 
it, for the following reasons : 

1. If believers are perfect because Christ is 
perfect for them, why does the apostie exhort 
them to ' go on unto perfection ? ' 

2. If believers were perfect in Christ, they 
would all be equally perfect. But does not St. 
John talk of some who are perfected, and of 
others who are not yet ■ made perfect in love V 

3. The apostle exhorts us to be 'perfect in 
every good work ;' and does not common sense 
dictate that there is a difference between our 
good works and the person of Christ ? 

4. Does not our Lord Himself show that His 
personal righteousness will by no means be ac- 
cepted instead of our personal perfection, where 
He says : ' Every branch in me which beareth 



20 • SCBIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

not fruit/ — or whose fruit never comes to per- 
fection ; (see Luke 8 : 14) — ' my Father taketh 
it away ; ' far from imputing to it His perfect 
fruitfulness ? 

5. A believer's perfection consists in such a 
high degree of ' faith as works by perfect love. 7 
And does not this high degree of faith chiefly 
imply uninterrupted self diffidence, self-denial, 
self-despair ? a heartfelt, ceaseless recourse to 
the blood, merits, and righteousness of Christ? 
and grateful love to Him ' because he first loved 
us/ and fervent charity to all mankind for His 
sake? These things in the very nature of 
things, cannot be in Christ at all, or cannot 
possibly be in Him in the same manner in which 
they must be in believers. 

6. Is not this doctrine big with interest ? May 
not the impenitent sinner persuade himself to 
continue in sin, or the penitent Christian to re- 
turn to it, by the persuasion that Christ's per- 
fection is imputed to him, and he, consequently, 
does not need intrinsic purity in himself? But 
in this do We not see a direct tendency to set 
godliness aside, and to countenance gross Anti- 
nomianism ? 

7. Who can read these words of Christ, and not 



SCKIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 21 

perceive that the perfection which He preached 
was a perfection of holy dispositions, productive 
of holy actions in His followers ? and that it 
is, of consequence, a personal perfection, as much 
inherent in us, and yet as much derived from Him 
and dependent upon Him, as the perfection of 
our bodily health ? — the chief difference consist- 
ing in this, that the perfection of our own health 
comes to us from God in Christ, as the God of 
nature ; whereas, our Christian perfection comes 
to us from God in Christ, as the God of grace. 

8. Imputed obedience rests upon the same 
footing, and stands or falls by the same argu- 
ments. Besides those mentioned, we add the 
following : (1). The law speaks often of the vicari- 
ous suffering, but never of vicarious love or obe- 
dience. (2). If we obey by proxy, we may sin 
as much as we please; for it is plain that if 
the obedience of another be accepted in lieu 
of our own, while we continue to indulge in 
a slight degree of sin, it may be thus accepted 
if we indulge a little more, and so on, until we 
have reached the depth of transgression." 

This argument of Mr. Fletcher's is clear, 
scriptural and conclusive. The doctrine which 
it seeks to overthrow, is based upon the false 



22 ERRORS RESPECTING HOLINESS. 

and unscriptural assumption that the righteous- 
ness or perfection of Christ's life, is the merito- 
rious cause of our salvation; while the Scrip- 
tures everywhere teach that " we have redemp- 
tion through his blood." 



CHAPTER II. 



HOLINESS DEFINED. 



WHAT is the state of that believer who is 
" made perfect in love/' (1 John, iv. 17) 
who is "pure in heart," (Matt. v. 8) who is 
" cleansed from all unrighteousness/' (1 John i. 
9) "who is perfect in Christ Jesus," (Col. i. 28) 
"who is without spot," (Eph. v. 27, 1 Tim. vi. 
14, 2 Pet. iii. 14) who is " sanctified wholly," (1 
Thess. v. 23) who is " cleansed from all filthiness 
of flesh and spirit," (2 Cor. vi. 1) and who has 
thus "perfected holiness in the fear of God"? 
(2 Cor. vii. 1.) 

An answer to this question will relieve many 
honest inquiries after the way of holiness. Our 
answer will be brief, but sufficiently clear, we 
trust, for all who seek to know the truth. 

Scriptural holiness includes the removal from 
our moral natures, through faith in Christ, of all 
sinful desires and tempers — all pride, anger, 
envy, unbelief, and love of the world ; and (2) 
the establishment in these purified natures of 
the unmixed graces of faith, humility, resigna- 

23 



24 SCBIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

tion, patience, meekness, self-denial and charity, 
or love. In other words, in entire holiness, there 
is wrought in the heart, through grace, the extir- 
pation of all that is opposed to grace, so that the 
moral man is delivered from all interior antagon- 
isms, and possessed of the abiding Comforter. 

A soul in such a state is " crucified with 
Christ." The law of sin no longer wars in his 
members, because the body of sin is destroyed. 

In such a state, faith exists without unbelief, 
love without enmity, humility without pride, 
patience without murmuring and obedience with- 
out willfulness. The soul has attained unto an 
unmixed moral state, and the undisturbed reign 
of Christ, as Messiah, is established there. The 
soul's action towards sin becomes spontaneous — 
an action without reasoning or deliberation, so 
that it shrinks from sin as naturally as the hand 
is withdrawn when, for any cause, it comes in 
contact with a serpent. Not that the soul does 
not feel the touch of sin, and is not profoundly 
moved by its presence, but feeling it, withdraws 
from it as instinctively as the hand is withdrawn 
from the touch of the viper. 

In this state,- the graces become perfect, in the 
sense of being complete. A faith which does 



HOLINESS DEFINED. 25 

not doubt God, but simply trusts Him in all 
things, is perfect faith ; humility which ascribes 
all glory to God, taking none to itself, is perfect 
humility ; meekness which saves from all anger 
and irritability, is perfect meekness ; self-denial 
which stands like the bullock between the plough 
and altar, ready for toil or sacrifice, however 
much opposed to natural inclination, is perfect 
self-denial; resignation, which says, either ex- 
alted or abased, " not as I will, but as Thou 
wilt," is perfect resignation; love which expels 
all hatred and tormenting fear, is perfect love. 
These graces all meet and are complete in a 
pure heart. Not complete in the sense of being 
mature and not admitting of increase, but com- 
plete up to our present light and capacity. To 
love God with all the heart, and our neighbor 
as ourselves, is the substance of the divine law, 
and the limit of the divine claim upon us. 

" Whatever may be the extent of powers pos- 
sessed, it asks the whole, and no more. If those 
energies in a single being exceed all that the 
race of man ever shared, still no part can be 
reserved or left unemployed : the entire amount, 
up to the last jot and tittle, is demanded. And 
if we descend to the very lowest grade of re- 



26 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

sponsible agents, where moral perception is 
scarcely distinguishable from mere animal in- 
stincts, the law claims no more than it finds. 
Whatever there is of mind, of vigor, of affec- 
tion, it asks — it accepts. If the whole be but as 
the smallest dew-drop, it asks no more; if it 
expands into the vastness of an ocean, it must 
have it all, out to the farthest shore, and down 
to the lowest depths." 

" The measure of our perfection is the perfec- 
tion of God. The great perfection of God is 
love, and when all the soul, however expanded 
or however diminutive, is love, — love to God 
and love to man, —it has reached the measure 
of its capacity, even as God has reached the 
measure of His infinite capacity; but such a 
soul has not reached the measure of its growth." 

This state of holiness is simply the restoration 
of man, in the language of Richard Watson, " to 
the obliterated image of God in which he had 
been created. " 

It is claimed, we are aware, that Adamic per- 
fection is an impossible attainment in this life. 
If by Adamic perfection is meant Adamic purity, 
we dissent. There is a marked difference be- 
tween Adamic perfection and Adamic purity. 



HOLINESS DEFINED. 27 

The perfection of the first man was three-fold — 
physical, intellectual, and moral. We are not 
to look for physical perfection until our bodies 
are made like unto Christ's most glorious body, 
through the power of the resurrection. Nor 
need we look for intellectual perfection, until we 
know as we are known. " Adam, it is true, did 
not possess omniscience, but within the range of 
his perceptive powers he was not subject to error* 
So far as God permitted him to know at all, he 
knew correctly. So that, relatively to the sphere 
of his ability and action, he was as perfect in- 
tellectually as he was corporeally and physically." 
— Upham. 

But with regard to moral perfection or purity, 
we are unable to see why our loss by the fall is 
not met in the Gospel. Adam was required to 
love God with all his heart, and no more ; and 
the Gospel claims nothing less of us. Dr. Adam 
Clarke says, " This perfection is the restoration 
of man to the state of holiness from which he 
fell, by creating him anew in Christ Jesus, and 
restoring to him that image and likeness of God 
which he lost. A higher meaning it cannot 
have ; a lower meaning it must not have." 

Mr. Fletcher says, " Christian perfection ex- 



28 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

tends chiefly to the will, which is the capital moral 
power of the soul ; leaving the understanding ig- 
norant of ten thousand things. Adamic perfec- 
tion extends to the whole man/' but not Adamic 
purity — as that belongs to the moral nature. 

This state of holiness does not exclude the 
liability to temptation, but aids in successfully 
resisting it. It does not place its possessor 
where he cannot fall, but, what is of equal ad- 
vantage to him, where he will not fall. It does 
not make him infallible, but it places him in such 
relations to Divine wisdom that he will be much 
more likely to know the mind of the Spirit. It 
does not arrest spiritual growth, but by remov- 
ing all obstructions, greatly promotes it. Nor 
does it give to its possessor a faultless external 
life, while he is encompassed with mental and 
physical infirmities, but it imparts to him a pure 
heart, out of which flows perfect love, which is 
more acceptable to God (( than whole burnt offer- 
ings and sacrifices." In a word, " sanctification," 
in the language of Mr. Wesley, " in the proper 
sense, is an instantaneous deliverance from all 
sin, and includes an instantaneous power, then 
given, always to cleave to God." 

This definition includes two important facts ; 



HOLINESS DEFINED. 29 

first, u instantaneous deliverance from all sin ;" 
which means that the heart is cleansed from all 
sin instantaneously; and secondly, that with 
this heart cleansing, comes a power from God 
by which we are kept in this state. 

As the theory has been put forth with great 
vigor, that we are not cleansed from all sin, but 
that sin is simply repressed, or subjugated, this 
may be a proper place to briefly consider that 
dogma. It is expressed in the following lan- 
guage : " Sanctification is such a measure of power 
over sin as holds us with more or less continuity 
in the same perfect fulness of Divine approba- 
tion, as rested upon us when justification first 
pronounced us, through Christ, perfectly inno- 
cent of sin/' — Meth. Quarterly Review. 

This remarkable language translated into 
plain English seems to be this : Sanctification is 
the continuance, with more or less interruption, 
of our full justification. If a believer succeeds 
in holding fast his first justification, with more 
or less interruption, he is sanctified. If this is 
not the meaning of the language employed, we 
cannot understand it. Our objections to this 
definition of entire sanctification are many; a 
few of which we will briefly state. 



30 SCRIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

1. It reduces the standard of entire sanctifi- 
cation below uninterrupted justification; for be 
it remembered that this full justification, which 
constitutes sanctification, is "'with more or less 
continuity/' This sanctification is not even un- 
interrupted justification. 

2. It makes, strangely enough, the uninter- 
rupted continuance of one thing, another thing 
— the uninterrupted continuance of justification — 
sanctification. But does not reason teach us that 
the power to maintain justification, equivalent 
to our first pardon, is not sanctification, but 
simply sustained justification, and nothing more? 

3. This view of sanctification falls below the 
Wesley an idea of justification. This is very plain. 

At the Conference of 1744, according to Miles' 
Chronological History, page 20, they discussed 
and settled the following question : 

" What are the immediate fruits of justifying 
faith ?" Ans. " Peace, joy, love, power over all 
outward sin, and power to keep down inward 
sin." 

Speaking of the justified, Mr. Wesley says : 
"He has power, both over outward and inward 
sin, even from the moment he is justified*" 
Vol. 1, page 109. 



HOLINESS DEFINED. 31 

In his sermon on " The Marks of the New 
Birth" he says : " An immediate and constant 
fruit of this faith whereby we are born of God, 
[not sanctified] fruit which can in no wise be 
separated from it, no, not for an hour, is power 
over sin : — power over outward sin of every 
kind; and power over inward sin" (Vol. i. 
p. 155.) 

Mr. "Wesley's view of entire sanctification is 
very different. It is not power to repress sin — to 
keep it in subjection, but it ia " Death to sin." 
(Vol. vi. p. 505). " Entire deliverance from 
sin." (Vol. vii. p. 71). " Cleansed from all un- 
righteousness." (Vol. iv. p. 126). Speaking of 
being cleansed from all sin, and all unrighteous- 
ness he says : " Neither let any sinner against his 
own soul say, that this relates to justification 
only, or the cleansing us from the guilt of sin / 
first, because this is confounding together what 
the Apostle clearly distinguishes, who mentions 
first, to forgive us our sins, and then to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness" (Vol. i. p. 
367). 

The hymns of the Wesleys are full of the idea 
of cleansing, but no where do we find the idea 
of repression or subjugation. 



32 SCEIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

(i Purge me from every sinful blot; 

My idols all be cast aside : 
Cleanse me from every evil thought ; 

From all the filth of self and pride." 

" Speak the second time, Be clean ! 
Take away my inbred sin." 

c< The hatred of my carnal mind 
Out of my flesh at once remove." 

" Come, O my Joshua, bring me in, 
Cast out the foe, the inbred sin, 
The carnal mind remove. " 

These citations are sufficient to show that the 
idea of repression found no place in Mr. Wes- 
ley's views of entire sanctification. It was 
"purge," " cleanse," " be clean," " remove," etc. 

Richard Watson defines entire sanctification as 
a "complete deliverance from all spiritual pollu- 
tion, all inward depravation of the heart." 
(Inst. Vol. ii. p. 450). Here is no repression, 
but extirpation — deliverance from all pollution. 

4. It is not in harmony with the word of God. 
" It is a remarkable fact," says Dr. Steele, " that 
while the Greek language richly abounds in 
words signifying repression, a half-score of 
which occur in the New Testament, yet none 
of them are used of inbred sin ; but such 



HOLINESS DEFINED. 33 

verbs as signify to cleanse, to purge, to 
purify, to mortify and to crucify. When St. 
Paul says that he keeps under his body and 
brings it into subjection, he makes no allusion to 
the sarx, the flesh, the carnal mind, but to his 
innocent bodily appetites. In Pauline usage 
body is different from flesh. We have diligently 
sought both in the Old Testament and the New 
for exhortations to seek the repression of sin. The 
uniform command is to put away sin, to purify 
the heart, to purge out the old leaven, and to 
seek to be sanctified throughout soul, body and 
spirit. Eepressive power is no where ascribed 
to the blood of Christ, but rather purgative effi- 
cacy. Now, if these verbs which signify cleans- 
ing, washing, crucifying, mortifying, or making 
dead, are all used in a tropical or metaphorical 
sense, it is very evident that the literal truth 
signified is something far stronger than repres- 
sion. It is eradication, extinction of being, de- 
struction." 

Nothing need be added to make this scrip- 
tural argument more complete. It will be seen 
at a glance, that repression is not the Divine 
method of dealing with sin, but extermination. 

5. We are met with another objection to the 
3 



34 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

repressive theory as difficult to explain as the 
one last named : It comes in direct conflict with 
the holiness of God. The same learned author 
last quoted says : " Holiness in man must mean 
precisely the same as holiness in God, who an- 
nounces Himself as holy, and then founds human 
obligation to holiness upon this revealed attri- 
bute : ' Be ye holy, for I am holy. 9 Who dares 
say that God's holiness is different in kind from 
man's holiness, save that the one is original and 
the other is inwrought by the Holy Ghost ? Now, 
if holiness in man is the same in kind as holiness 
in God — and it is perilous to deny it — what be- 
comes of the repressive theory ? Are there ex- 
plosive elements in the Divine nature, and is 
there some outside power holding down sinful 
tendencies in his heart ? Or, is he himself hold- 
ing them down ? Let St. John answer : ' In 
him is no darkness ' — moral evil — ( at all/ His 
nature is unmingled purity. This must be the 
pattern of our holiness. ' He that hath this 
hope in him ? purifieth himself, even as He is 

pure.' Hence if anv one should ask me to in- 
1/ 

sure his admittance into a holy heaven, into 
the presence of a holy God, with inbred sin in 
his heart, though held down by the Holy 



HOLINESS DEFINED. 35 

Ghost Himself, I should decline the risk alto- 
gether." 

6. The repressive theory, confounds the dis- 
tinction between holiness and virtue. 

Quoting from the same writer, whose reason- 
ings are cogent and. clear, he says: "We 
never call God virtuous, nor angels, nor Jesus 
Christ, nor the spirits of the just made perfect, 
whether in the body or out of the body. "We 
do not magnify, but rather belittle the Son of 
God, to ascribe to Him only virtue. He is holy, 
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. 
What is the specific difference between virtue 
and holiness ? Eepression. Virtue is the tri- 
umph of right against strong inward tendencies 
toward the opposite. _ Jesus triumphed over out- 
ward temptations to sin, and was holy. Mary 
Magdalene, by Divine grace, triumphed over 
strong inward tendencies toward vice, and was 
virtuous. The repressive theory of holiness, in- 
volving as it must the co-working of the human 
soul with the Divine Eepresser, confounds the 
broad distinction between holiness and virtue, 
and banishes holiness from the earth, substituting 
virtue instead. In fact we do not see any pos- 
sibility, on this theory, for a fallen man ever to 



36 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

become holy in the sense of the entire extinction 
of inbred sin. If this is only repressed here, it 
may be only repressed forever hereafter. If the 
Holy Spirit cannot eradicate original sin now, 
and here, through faith in the ■ blood of Jesus, 
what assurance have we that He can ever en- ' 
tirely sanctify our souls ? But, if by repres- 
sion is meant the right poising of the innocent 
passions of sanctified human nature after the 
extinction of ingratitude, unbelief, malice, self- 
will, and every other characteristic of depraved 
human nature which is sinful per se, we accept 
it as Wesley an and Scriptural." 
. 7. The testimony of consciousness is opposed 
to the repressive theory. Thousands have testi- 
fied to a clear and most delightful sense of heart 
purity. It has not been the absence of malice, 
and envy, and pride, but the conscious presence 
of purity all through their natures. If these 
evils still exist within, only repressed by a su- 
perior force, keeping them under, " consciousness 
must attest to a falsehood when she bears witness 
to entire inward purity." 

No amount of argument can convince the be- 
liever, who is conscious that the blood " cleanseth 
from ail filthiness of flesh and spirit/' that the 



HOLINESS DEFINED. 37 

work is not done. He bears about in his heart 
daily the sweet assurance that he is 6C dead unto 
sin and alive unto God/' through a purification 
wrought by the " precious blood of Christ." 
With him, the old man has been cast out and 
spoiled of his goods. 



CHAPTEE III. 

HOLINESS THE FAITH OF THE CHRISTIAN 
CHURCH. 

n^HE view of Christian holiness which we have 
-*- presented in the previous chapter, is not a 
new doctrine in the Christian Church. Though 
differing in terminology, it has been held by 
many of the ablest and best defenders of the 
Christian faith from the Apostolic to the present 
time. 

St. Ignatius, who was a disciple of St. John, 
and who for upwards of forty years was the 
pastor of the Church at Antioch, and who, dur- 
ing the third persecution of the Christians, suf- 
fered martyrdom at Eome, by being cast to the 
wild beasts, says : " Nothing is better than, peace, 
whereby all war is destroyed, both of things in 
heaven and things on earth. Nothing of this 
is hid from you if ye have perfect faith in Jesus 
Christ, and love, which are the beginning and end 
of life : faith is the beginning, love the end ; and 
both being joined in one, are of God. All other 
38 * 



THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 39 

things pertaining to perfect holiness follow. For 
no man that hath faith sinneth ; and none that 
hath love hateth any man." Epistle to the Ephe- 
sians, A. D. 70. 

Clement, chosen Bishop of Borne, in the sixty- 
seventh year of the Christian era, hence called 
Clement of Borne, whose name was in the "book 
of life," (Phil. iv. 3,) wrote two epistles to the 
Church at Corinth, which were so highly prized 
by the early Christians that they caused them 
to be read in the churches. Irenceus says of 
him: "He had seen the blessed apostles, and 
conversed with them ; and the preaching of the 
apostles still sounded in his ears." In one of 
his epistles to the Corinthians, speaking of "per- 
fect love," he says : " The height to which love 
exalts us cannot be spoken. Love unites us to 
God. Love covereth a multitude of sins. Love 
is long-suffering ; yea, beareth all things. There 
is nothing mean in love, there is nothing haughty. 
Love has no schism, is not seditious. Love 
does all things in tmity. By love were all the 
elect of God made perfect. "Without love nothing 
is acceptable to God. Ye see, beloved, how 
great and wonderful a thing love is, and that no 
words can declare its perfection. Who, then, 



40 SCKIPT T JRAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

is sufficient to be found therein ? who but they 
to whom God vouchsafes to teach it ? Let us, 
therefore, beseech Him that we may be worthy 
thereof, that we may live in love, unblamable, 
without respect of persons. All the generations 
from Adam unto this day are passed away ; but 
those who were made perfect in love are in the 
regions of the just, and shall appear in glory at 
the visitation of the Kingdom of Christ." 

Irenceus, bishop of Lyons, a father of the second 
century, and disciple of Polycarp, says : " The 
Apostle, explaining himself in his 1st Epistle 
to the Thessalonians, chap, v., exhibited the 
perfect and spiritual salvation of man, say- 
ing, 'But the God of peace sanctify you per- 
fectly ; that your soul, body and spirit may be 
preserved without fault to the coming of the Lord 
Jesus Christ/ How then, indeed, did he have 
the cause of these three, (that is, to pray for the 
entire and perfect preservation of soul, body and 
spirit to the coming of the Lord,) unless he knew 
the common salvation of these was the renovation 
of the whole three ? Wherefore he calls those 
perfect who present the three faultless to the 
Lord. Therefore those are perfect who have pre- 
served their souls and bodies without fault." 



THE CHRISTIAN CHUKCH. 41 

These holy men well understood the doctrines 
of the Apostles ; and it is not likely that they 
would be at fault on so important a doctrine as 
the one with reference to which they have spoken. 

Macarius, who lived in the fourth century, 
has left in his " Homilies " some clear state- 
ments on this subject. It is said of him, 
that " having served his Master faithfully for 
ninety years, he was received up into the 
reward of his labor. He died on the 5th of 
January, A. D. 391. Thus lived, and thus died, 
the great Macarius, of Egypt, if he can so 
properly be said to die, whose very life in the 
flesh was a -constant death to this present evil 
world." — Wesley s Christian Library, vol. i. p. 
70. 

The "Homilies" of Macarius are beauti- 
ful illustrations of a holy life. He says : " The 
soul that is thoroughly illuminated by the in- 
expressible beauty of the glory of the light of 
the face of Christ, and partakes of the Holy 
Spirit in perfection, and is thought worthy to 
become the mansion and throne of God, becomes 
all eye, all light, and all face, and all glory, and 
all spirit." 

" One that is rich in grace, at all times, by 



42 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

night and by day, continues in a perfect state, 
free and pure, ever captivated with love, and 
elevated to God." 

" What, then, is that c perfect will of God ' to 
which the Apostle calls and exhorts every one 
of us to attain ? It is perfect purity from sin, 
freedom from all shameful passions, and the 
assumption of perfect virtue ; that is, the puri- 
fication of the heart by the plenary and experi- 
mental communion of the perfect and divine 
Spirit. To those who say that it is impossible 
to attain to perfection, and the final and com- 
plete subjugation of the passions, or to acquire a 
full participation of the good Spirit, we must 
oppose the testimony of the divine Scriptures ; 
and prove to them that they are ignorant, and 
speak both falsely and presumptuously." 

Who can question, after reading these ex- 
tracts, but what heart-purity was taught and 
known in the Apostolic Church, and by the 
Fathers ? 

Thomas Erasmus (1550) speaks of " pure and 
clean minds : u Blessed are they whose heart is 
pure and clean from all filthiness." 

The Reformers composed a prayer, still in 
use : " Cleanse Thou the thoughts of my heart 



THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 43 

by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, that I 
may perfectly love Thee, and worthily magnify 
Thy holy name." 

In 1647, George Fox, the founder of the So- 
ciety of Friends, said : " I was come up in spirit 
through the flaming sword into the paradise of 
God, and knew nothing but pureness, innocency 
and righteousness ; being renewed up into the 
image of God by Christ Jesus, into the state that 
Adam was before the fall." 

In 1670, Isaac Pennington, one of the best 
educated and most laborious followers of Fox, 
maintained the doctrine of Christian holiness. He 
inquires : " Is it not the will of Christ that His 
disciples should be perfect, as their Heavenly 
Father is perfect ? Does he not who hath the 
true, pure, living hope, purify himself, even as 
He is pure? Is not this the way to enjoy the 
promises of God's presence, to cleanse ourselves 
from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting 
holiness in God's fear ? Will God dwell in an 
unholy temple ? He may indeed to such, when 
at any time they are tender and truly melted 
before Him, as the wayfaring man that tarries 
for a night ; but He will not take up His abode 
there." "I verily believe many can witness to 



44 SCKIPTUBAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

such a state, which, the Spirit of God doe$ not 
call less in them than a perfect state, a sound 
state, wherein Christ, the Heavenly Physician, 
has healed them perfectly, and made them wit- 
nesses of true soundness of soul and spirit in 
the sight of God. Oh, that all knew and en- 
joyed it!" 

Robert Barclay, one of the most able and 
voluminous writers among the early Friends, in 
his " Apology for the True Christian Divinity , as 
held and preached by the people called in scorn 
Quakers/' published in 1675, makes an able de- 
fense of this proposition : " In whom this pure 
and holy birth is fully brought forth, the body 
of death and sin comes to be crucified and re- 
moved, and their hearts united and subjected 
to the truth ; so as not to obey any suggestions 
to temptations of the Evil One, but to be free 
from actual sinning and transgressings of the 
cause of God, and in that respect perfect ; yet 
this perfection still admits of growth ; and there 
remaineth always in some part a possibility of 
sinning, where the mind doth not diligently and 
watchfully attend unto the Lord." 

Rev, Ralph Cudworlh, D. D., who died in 
1688, and who is said to have been' " a man of 



THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 45 

extensive erudition, well skilled in the - languages, 
an able philosopher, an acute mathematician, and 
a profound metaphysician;" in a sermon preached 
before the House of Commons, says : " I mean 
by holiness, nothing else but Grod stamped and 
printed upon my soul. . True holiness is always 
breathing upward, and fluttering towards heaven, 
striving to embosom itself with Grod. We do 
but deceive ourselves with names ; hell is nothing 
but the orb of sin and wickedness, or else that 
hemisphere of darkness in which all evil moves ; 
and heaven is the opposite hemisphere of light, 
the bright orb of truth, holiness, and goodness ; 
and we actually in this life install ourselves in 
the possession of one or other of them. There 
be some that dishearten us in our spiritual war- 
fare, and would make us let our weapons fall out 
of our hands, by working in us a despair of vic- 
tory. There be some evil spies that weaken the 
hands and hearts of the children of Israel ; and 
bring an ill report upon that land that we are to 
conquer, telling of nothing but strange giants, 
the sons of Anak there, that we shall never be 
able to overcome. The Amalekites, say they, 
dwell in the south; the Hittites, Jebusites, 
Amorites, in the mountains ; and the Canaanites 



46 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

by the sea-coast ; huge armies of tall invincible 
lusts : we shall never be able to go against them, 
we shall never be able to prevail against our cor- 
ruptions. Hearken not unto them, I beseech you, 
but hear what Caleb and Joshua say : ' Let us 
go up at once and possess it ; for we are able to 
overcome them :' not by our own strength, but 
by the power of the Lord of hosts. There are 
indeed sons of Anak there ; there are mighty 
giant-like lusts that we are to grapple with ; nay, 
there are principalities and powers, too, that we 
are to oppose ; but the great Michael, the Cap- 
tain of the Lord's host, is with us ; He commands 
in chief for us, and we need not be dismayed. 
1 Understand, therefore, this day, that the Lord 
thy God is He which goeth before thee ; as a 
consuming fire, He shall destroy these enemies, 
and bring them down before thy face/ If thou 
wilt be faithful to Him, and put thy trust in 
Him, ' as the fire consumeth the stubble, and as 
the flame burneth up the chaff,' so will He de- 
stroy thy lusts in thee : their root shall be as 
rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as the 
dust." 

Rev. Walter Marshall, fellow of New College, 
Oxford, and subsequently fellow of Winchester ; 



THE CHRISTIAN CHUECH. 47 

a Presbyterian, who for nonconformity was 
ejected from his living at Hursley, in 1662, was 
an able defender of the gospel of full salvation. 
He spent his last days in ministering to a little 
flock in Gosport, in Hampshire, " where he 
shined," it is said, " though he had not the public 
oil." " He had, by many mortifying methods, 
sought peace of conscience ; but notwithstanding 
all, his troubles still increased." He wisely con- 
sulted Eichard Baxter, who told him that he 
took his troubles " too legally.-" Another divine 
whom he consulted, and to whom he related his 
soul-troubles, told him plainly that he had " for- 
gotten to mention the greatest sin of all, the sin 
of unbelief, in not believing on the Lord Jesus, 
for the remission of his sins and the sanctifying 
his nature." From this time he sought Christ 
by faith, and not only found Him as a pardoning, 
but sanctifying Saviour, and died " in the full 
persuasion of the truth, and in the comfort of 
that doctrine which he had preached." 

Mr. Marshall wrote a book, which he entitled, 
" The Gospel Mystery of Sanetification Opened. 1 ' 
"The substance of which," says a writer of the 
times, "was spun out of his own experience." 
The copy from which we quote is from the Edin- 



48 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

burgh, edition of 1644, the work having been 
written in the latter part of the former century. 

Mr. Marshall says : # " Be sure to seek for holi- 
ness of heart and life only in its due order, where 
God hath placed it, — after union with Christ, 
justification, and the gift of the Holy Ghost; 
and in that order seek it earnestly, by faith, as 
a very necessary part of your salvation." 

" But though salvation be often taken in 
Scripture, by way of eminency, for its perfection 
in the state of heavenly glory, yet, according to 
its full and proper signification, we are to under- 
stand by it all that freedom from the evil of our 
natural corrupt state, and all those holy and 
happy enjoyments, that we receive from Christ 
our Saviour, either in this world by faith, or in 
the world to come by glorification. Thus justi- 
fication, the gift of the Spirit to dwell in us, the 
privileges of adoption, are parts of our salvation, 
which we partake of in this life. Thus, also, 
the conformity of our hearts to the law of God, 
and the i fruits of righteousness with which we 
are filled by Jesus Christ ' in this life, are a 
necessary part of our salvation. God saveth us 
from our sinful uncleanness here by i the wash- 
ing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy 



THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 49 

Ghost,' as well as from hell hereafter (Ezek. 
ixxvi. 29 ; Tit. iii. 5). ' Christ was called Jesus, 
that is, a Saviour, because He save&His people 
from their sins ' (Matt. i. 21), p. 137." 

Dr. Worthington, born the same year with 
John Wesley : a worthy minister and able 
writer, in a work entitled " The Scheme and 
Conduct of Mans Redemption" says: "If we 
suppose that nature shall, by degrees, be so re- 
fined by grace, as at length to be fully recovered 
of its present disorders; then all difficulties 
immediately vanish, and we may easily appre- 
hend what is meant by Christian perfection in 
its full extent ; this being but another word for 
the recovery of the original perfection of our 
nature, to which, when it arrives at its full 
height, I conceive it will be in no respect in- 
ferior. That human nature shall in this life 
arrive at such a complete state of perfection as 
this, besides what has been already observed, 
may be further argued from the consequences 
of the opposite opinion. For I conceive, that 
the doctrine of the impossibility of attaining 
perfection and freedom from sin, is injurious to 
our Saviour, Christ, derogates from the power 
and virtue of His sacrifice, and renders His mis- 
4 



50 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

sion, as to the main end of it, in a great measure 
ineffectual." 

Isaac Ambrose, who flourished about the 
middle of the 17th century , in a work edited by 
Mr. Wesley, describes the excellency of sancti- 
fication thus: ' 

"The excellency of this privilege appears in 
this particular. This is our glory and beauty, 
even glorification begun. What greater glory 
than to be like unto God ? We are changed 
from the same image, from glory to glory ; every 
degree of grace is glory ; and the perfection of 
glory in heaven consists chiefly in the perfection 
of grace." — Ambrose, Works, p. 87. 

Bishop Hopkins, quoted by Mr. Fletcher, 
says, " Consider for your encouragement, that it 
is not so much the absolute and legal perfection 
of the work as the perfection of the worker, 
that is, the perfection of the heart, which is 
looked at and rewarded by God. It is not so 
much what our works are, as what our heart is, 
that God looks at and rewards." 

The same author quotes Archbishop Leighton, 
as follows : " By obedience, sanctification is 
here intimated. It signifies both habitual and 
actual obedience, renovation of the heart, and 



THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 51 

conformity to the Divine will. This obedience 
is universal three manner of ways : 1. In the 
subject. It is not in the tongue alone, or in the 
hand, etc., but has its root in the heart. 2. In 
the object. It embraces the whole law. 3. In 
its duration. The whole man is subjected to the 
whole law, and that continually." Again he 
says, "To be subject to God is truer happiness 
than to command the whole world. Pure love 
reckons thus, though no further reward were to 
follow, obedience to God (the perfection of His 
creatures, and its very happiness) carries its full 
recompense in its own bosom. Yea, love delights 
most in the hardest services. It is love to Him, 
indeed, to love the labor of love, and the service 
of it ; and that, not so much because it leads to 
rest, and ends in it, but because it is service to 
Him whom we love. According as love is, so is 
the soul; it is made like, yea, it is made one 
with that which it loves. By the love of God 
it is made divine, is one with Him." — Commen- 
tary on St. Peter , p. 15, etc. 

Bishop Taylor, in speaking of " perfection/' 
or "loving God with all the heart," says: "That 
this is possible, is folly to deny. For he that 
saith he cannot do what he can do, knows not 



52 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

what he says ; and yet to do this is the highest 
measure and sublimity of perfection, and of 
keeping the commandments." 

The Methodistic view of Christian holiness is 
generally very clearly defined. There is a rea- 
son for this. It was formulated amidst the fires 
of controversy, rendering it necessary to guard 
every point. The terms which they employ are 
mainly Scriptural, and for that reason less liable 
to be misunderstood. 

Mr. Wesley says, " Scriptural holiness is the 
image of God ; the mind that was in Christ ; the 
love of Cod and man ; lowliness, gentleness, 
temperance, patience, charity/' (Vol. vi., p. 23). 
" Holiness is having the mind of Christ, and 
walking as He walked/ 7 (Vol. ii., p. 405). 

Richard Watson defines entire sanctification 
as a" Complete deliverance from all spiritual 
pollution, all inward depravation of the heart, as 
well as that, which, expressing itself outwardly 
by the indulgence of the senses, is called fi.lth.i- 
ness of flesh and spirit." (Inst. Vol. ii., p. 450). 

Mr. Fletcher says, " We contend for a perfec- 
tion in which the love of God is so * shed abroad 
in our hearts/ that it controls all the actions and 
feelings, and ' sin has no dominion over us/ ' 



THE CHRISTIAN CHUKCH. 53 

" We frequently use, as St. John, the phrase 
1 perfect love/ instead of perfection ; understand- 
ing by it the pure love of God shed abroad in 
the heart of established believers by the Holy 
Ghost, which is abundantly given unto them 
under the fulness of the Christian dispensation." 
[Christian Perfection, p. 27). 

Dr. Upham, of the Congregational Church, 
gives the following, as his view of the subject. 
" What then is the nature of Christian perfec- 
tion, or of that holiness which, as fallen and as 
physically and intellectually imperfect creatures, 
we are imperatively required and expected to 
exercise ; and to exercise not merely in the 
i article of death, but at the present moment, 
and during every succeeding moment of our 
lives ? ' It is on a question of this nature, if on 
any one which can possibly be proposed to the 
understanding, that we must go to the Bible ; 
and must humbly receive, irrespective of human 
suggestions and human opinions, the answer 
which the Word of God gives. It is cause of 
great gratitude that a question so momentous is 
answered by the Saviour Himself; and in such a 
way as to leave the subject clear and satisfactory 
to humble and candid minds. When the Saviour 



54 SCBIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

was asked, ( Which, is the great commandment 
in the law ? ' He answered, ' Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy Grod with all thy heart, and with all 
thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the 
first and great commandment. And the second 
is like unto it : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself. On these two commandments hang all 
the law and the prophets. 1 — Matt. xxii. 37-39. 
And it is in accordance with the truth involved in 
this remarkable passage, that the Apostle asserts, 
Rom. xiii. 20, i Love is the fulfilling of the law.' " 
" He, therefore, who loves Grod with his whole 
heart, and his neighbor as himself, although his 
state may, in some incidental respects, be differ- 
ent from that of Adam, and especially from that 
of the angels in heaven, and although he may 
be the subject of involuntary imperfections and 
infirmities, which, in consequence of his relation 
to Adam, require confession and atonement, is 
nevertheless, in the gospel sense of the term, 
a holy or sanctified person. He has that love 
which is the i fulfilling of the law/ He bears 
the image of Christ. It is true, he may not 
have that physical or intellectual perfection 
which the Saviour had ; but he bears His moral 
image." Interior Life, p. 23. 



THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 55 

"We have seen that, with regard to the nature 
of entire sanctification, there is very great har- 
mony of belief and expression among Christians 
of every age, and of different shades of religious 
belief. They all agree that it is (1) freedom 
from sin ; (2) that it is through faith in the 
merits of Christ's death ; (3) that it is a work 
to be accomplished in the hearts of those 
who are already believers, and (4) that it is to 
be enjoyed in this life. This is not then a new 
doctrine, but as old as Christianity. It is not 
exclusively held and taught by one denomina- 
tion, though it has been made more prominent by 
some than by others. It is the inheritance of 
God's universal Zion. The wonder is that any 
reject it, and the greater wonder that all do not 
enjoy it. 



CHAPTER IV. 



HOLINESS SCEIPTUEAL. 



TF the doctrine of Christian holiness is not 
■*- clearly, plainly taught in the Scriptures, we 
are under no obligations to accept it. But to 
the most spiritual, the Bible glows with the de- 
lightful theme. They see it on every page, and 
wonder that others have not the same vision. 
To them, "It breathes in the prophecy, thunders 
in the law, murmurs in the narrative, whispers 
in the promises, supplicates in the prayers, 
sparkles in the poetry, resounds in the songs, 
speaks in the types, glows in the imagery, voices 
in the language, and burns in the spirit of its 
whole scheme, from its alpha to its omega, from 
its beginning to its end." "Holiness! holiness 
needed! holiness required! holiness offered! 
holiness attainable ! holiness a present duty, — 
a present privilege, — a present enjoyment, — 
is the progress and completeness of its won- 
drous theme ! It is the truth glowing all over, — 
webbing all through revelation; the glorious 
56 



HOLINESS SCRIPTURAL. 57 

truth which sparkles, and whispers, and sings, 
and shouts in all its history, and biography, 
1 and poetry, and prophecy, and precept, and 
promise, and prayer, the great central truth 
of the system." — Bishop Foster. 

But this may seem a little too rhetorical for 
convincing argument. Let us, therefore, appeal 
directly to the Record. 

The Scriptures describe this state as one of 
^purity. They not only command us to be " pure 
in heart," but they represent such a character as 
actually existing. " Blessed are the pure in 
heart," (Matt. v. 8.) " To the pure all things are 
pure," (Tit. i. 15.) '< Keep thyself pure," (1 Tim. 
v. 22.) " I stir up your pure minds by way of 
remembrance," (2 Pet. iii. 1.) " Purifieth him- 
self, even as He is pure," (1 John iii. 3.) " Who 
gave Himself for us that He might . . purify 
unto Himself a peculiar people/' (Titus, ii. 14.) 
" Purifying their hearts by faith," (Acts xv. 8.) 
"Seeing ye have purified your hearts in obeying 
the truth," (1. Pet. i. 22.) " Holding faith in a 
pure conscience," (1 Tim. iii. 9.) 

The term pure is defined, etymologically, as 
meaning " entire separation from all hetero- 
geneous or extraneous matter ; clear ; free from 



58 SCEIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

mixture; as pure water, pure air ; pure wine ; 
pure silver or gold." — Webster. 

Its theological meaning, according to the same 
authority is, " freedom from moral defilement ; 
without spot ; not sullied or tarnished ; incor- 
rupt; undefiled by moral turpitude ; holy." 

Pure has the sense of " unmixed," " unadul- 
terated." It is a simple — consisting of one 
thing ; uncompounded — a heart in which there 
is nothing but purity — nothing adverse to God, 
to Christ, to holiness. 

That such a moral state is possible, is proved 
from the language of Jesus ; " Blessed are the 
pure in heart." If such a character did not ex- 
ist, the language of the beatitude would be 
meaningless. "When Jesus says, " Blessed are 
the merciful ;" "Blessed are the meek ;" "Blessed 
are they which do hunger and thirst after right- 
eousness," etc., He means to intimate that such 
characters exist. If there were none who were 
merciful — none meek — none who hungered and 
thirsted after righteousness, there would be no 
propriety in these utterances. When He says, 
" Blessed are the pure in heart," He means to 
say that such characters exist, or His language 
is without meaning. 



HOLINESS SCEIPTUEAL. 59 

Tliere is not only such a state described, but 
the promise that' God will give such a heart. " I 
will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge 
away thy dross, and take away all thy tin," (Isa. 
i. 25). If all the dross and tin — meaning all 
depravity — is " purely purged away/' the un- 
mixed gold of heart purity only remains. 

" Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and 
ye shall be clean ; from all your filthiness, and from 
all your idols will I cleanse you." " I will also 
save you from all your uncleannesses," (Eze. 
xxxvi. 25-29). This makes the purity complete ; 
and this God has promised to do. " And I will 
cleanse them from ail their iniquities, whereby 
they have sinned against me," (Jerem. xxxiii. 8). 
This is a promise made to men in this life, for 
this life. But how could such a result be secured, 
if purity of heart is neither promised nor en- 
joyed in this life? 

" Many shall be purified, and made white, and 
tried," (Dan. xii. 10). This does not have refer- 
ence to the future, but to the present life. " He 
shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver ; and 
he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them 
as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the 
Lord an offering in righteousness," (Mai. iii. 3). 



60 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

That this refining, purifying and purging is a 
work to be wrought upon the human soul in this 
life, is clear, from the fact that it is to be followed 
by an offering unto the Lord in righteousness. 

" If the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes 
of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to 
the purifying of the flesh ; how much more shall 
the blood of Christ; who through the eternal 
Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, purge 
your consciences from dead works to serve the 
living God ?" (Heb. ix. 13-14). If the blood of 
beasts, offered in sacrifice, did make pure, ceremo- 
nially, or sanctify to the purifying of the flesh ; 
shall not the blood of Christ, which is infinitely 
more efficacious in purging or making pure the 
conscience, complete the work of cleansing in 
the soul of the believer ? 

" If we walk in the light, as He is in the 
light, we have fellowship one with another, and 
the blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanseth us 
from all sin/ 7 (1 John i. 7.) " If we confess 
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us 
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous- 
ness/' (1 John i. 9). 

If " the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from 
all sin"— not will cleanse, but " cleanseth" which 



HOLINESS SCRIPTURAL. 61 

means now, at this time — this moment, then 
ample provision is made for our complete salva- 
tion from sin in this life ; and to deny the possi- 
bility of such cleansing, is not only to call in 
question the Divine ability, but to deny that the 
blood possesses the virtue which inspiration 
claims for it. "Who is prepared to make such a 
denial without any Scriptural authority ? 

Believers are Represented as Being Perfect. 

This is an offensive term, we are aware, and 
yet it is the term which inspiration has seen 
proper to employ with great frequency. We 
have defined what is meant by Christian perfec- 
tion, (see Chap. i). The terms " perfect," " per- 
fection/' "perfect love," etc., are not terms of 
denominational invention, nor are they of human 
origin at all, as it regards their use in describing 
spiritual things. They are terms employed by 
the Holy Ghost to describe the experience of be- 
lievers in this life. Who will affirm that He did 
not fully understand their import, and that they 
were not employed properly ? 

When God speaks of believers being made 
perfect, we are not to understand that He is 
speaking of a perfection which belongs to God, 
or angels, or Adam before his fall ; but of man 



62 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

in his present state and relations. " The mean- 
ing of words or terms in reference to any par- 
ticular subject is to be found in their subjective 
relations. The lines defining the subject fix a 
limit to the meaning of words connected with 
it, and hence preclude an arbitrary or general 
meaning of the same terms, which is manifestly 
foreign to the subject in hand. 

■" Apply this common sense rule to the term 
perfection, in its relation to human experience 
in this world, and you will see that St. Paul 
does not mean absolute perfection in any sense, 
for that belongs to God alone, and He is not the 
subject of discourse at all. 

" He does not mean the perfection of angels, 
whatever that may be, for he is not writing 
about angels. 

" He does not mean the pristine perfection of 
our first parents in Eden, whatever that may 
have been, for he is not talking about them, but 
about their unhappy children, who are, through 
the redemption of Jesus, recovering from the ef- 
fects of their fall. 

" He does not mean a perfection which will in 
this life, exempt us from infirmities of mind — 
unavoidable errors of judgment — nor, hence, er- 



HOLINESS SCRIPTURAL. 63 

rors of practice ; nor the bodily infirmities to 
which flesh in common is heir. The Saviour 
distinctly advertised His followers of the fact 
that ' In the world ye shall have tribulation.' ' 
{Infancy and Manhood, p. 21). 

1. Such a perfection is commanded. 

God commanded Abraham, — " Walk before 
Me and be thou perfect/' — (Gen. xvii. 1,) which 
He could not have done, had such a walk, or 
such a life, been impossible. 

David counsels Solomon to serve God " with a 
perfect heart, and with a willing mind/' — 
(1 Chron. xxviii. 9.) Was David so imperfectly 
versed in the service of God, as to urge his son 
to so fruitless an endeavor as that of attempting 
to serve God " with a perfect heart ? " He must 
have been, had such a service been impossible. 
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father 
which is in heaven is perfect," (Matt. v. 48.) 
" Be perfect, by having a heart purified from all 
hate, and filled with all love. If thy vessel be 
filled with love, God can be no more than full. 
He is the perfect infinite, thou art the perfect fi- 
nite. The shrine of a temple was a perfect im- 
age of the temple. The temple was a perfect 
temple, the shrine was a perfect shrine. They 



64: SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

were different in magnitude, but they were alike 
perfect." — Whedcn. 

The Greek verb here rendered be ye, is pro- 
perly rendered, ye shall be, amounting to a 
promise that they may or shall be perfect as 
their Father in heaven is perfect. 

Alford remarks upon this text : " No counte- 
nance is given in this verse to perfectibility in 
this life." " Taking the word perfectibility in 
its evangelical sense/' says Dr. Whedon, "we 
should like to know why? Our Saviour here 
distinctly affirms that it depends upon, or rather 
consists in the indwelling reign of love in our 
hearts. Nor must any man lower down to his 
own moral level the high promises of God's 
word in this behalf. Against these promises 
of the complete reign of love in the heart, com- 
pleting our Christian life, it is useless to quote 
those imperfections and failings which belong 
to men as men, arising from the limitations of 
the human mind. Neither St. Paul nor St. 
James expected that the Christians they ad- 
dressed would be perfect like angels, or even 
ideally perfect men, nor perfect performers of 
God's absolute law. But they did expect that 
the law of love might possess a power in their 



HOLINESS SCKIFTUKAL. 65 

hearts, and in that would consist the perfected 
character of their piety." 

" ' Be perfect/ (2 Cor. xiii. 11,) or, be made 
perfect, which more exactly expresses the origi- 
nal." — Alford. 

"' Let us go on unto perfection/ (Heb vi. 1,) 
not towards perfection, with no prospect of gain- 
ing it, as some would have it, but to or unto it. 
But why start for a point never to be reached 
in this life ? The preposition has the sense of 
starting for a place with a view of reaching it 
as a limit, as an end ; with the idea of subse- 
quent rest there/' — {Robinson.) It means, to 
start for the goal of perfection, and make it, and 
rejoice in it. 

"We have cited but a few of the Scriptures 
which command holiness or perfection. To deny 
the doctrine is to charge God with mocking us 
with commands which we are utterly unable to 
perform. God does not command us to be holy, 
to be perfect, to love Him with all the heart, 
knowing at the same time that He is requiring 
an impossibility. If it is too great to be - en- 
joyed, is it not too great to be commanded? 
Mark, we are not commanded to aspire after it, 
and approximate it as nearly as possible, but we 
5 



66 SCKIPTUBAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

are commanded to possess it. It is presented, 
not only as a present duty and privilege, but a 
present enjoyment. 

2. God has not only commanded us to be per- 
fect, but He has assured us of His ability to 
make us thus. 

Human weakness, if supplemented by Divine 
power, is no barrier to the accomplishment of 
such a work. 

u Wherefore He is able also to save them to 
the uttermost that come unto God by Him, see- 
ing He ever liveth to make intercession for 
them," (Heb. 8 : 25.) " The original word 
rendered uttermost is, as every Greek scholar 
knows, one of the strongest words that can be 
found in the Greek or any other language, being 
compounded of two words, pantos, which means 
all, and telos, uniformly translated in the New 
Testament perfection. That Christ, in the most 
absolute sense, is able to save us from all sin, is 
undeniable." — (Dr. Mahan.) The term utter- 
most, means, the extreme, the furthest, the 
greatest, the highest degree, fully. It is made 
up of two superlatives. Utter, meaning, utmost, 
complete, total, absolute, perfect ; and most, 
meaning, the utmost extent, the greatest number, 



HOLINESS SCKIPTUKAL. 67 

the greatest quantity. Christ is able to save all 
that come unto God by Him, to the extent 
indicated by this word. 

il Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding 
abundantly above all that we ask or think, ac- 
cording to the power that worketh in us." (Eph. 
iii. 20.) Paul had been asking for great and 
wonderful blessings. 1. That they might be 
strengthened with might in the inner man, and 
that it might be strength according to the riches 
of His glory. 2. That Christ might dwell in 
their hearts by faith. 3. That they might be 
rooted and grounded in love. 4. That they 
might be able to comprehend what is the breadth, 
and length, and depth, and height of the love of 
Christ. 5. That they might know Christ's love, 
which passeth knowledge. 6. That they might 
be filled with all the fulness of God. A person 
who had received all this, it would seem, would 
need nothing more to make them complete in 
Christ. But that all doubt might be removed 
from the mind, as to the Divine ability, he as- 
serts that God is able to do exceeding abundantly 
above all our asking or thinking. Can any 
doubt remain as to His ability to save us from 
all sin ? " And His ability here is so necessarily 



68 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

connected with His willingness, that the one in- 
disputably implies the other: for, of what con- 
sequence would it be to tell the Church of God 
that He had power to do so and so, if there were 
not implied an assurance that* He will do what 
His power can, and what the soul of man needs 
to have done/' — (Dr. Clarke) 

3. God has inspired prayers for this complete- 
ness, or perfection, which would never have been 
done j if the prayers were not to be answered. 

As we consider these prayers, let the reader 
bear in mind what God has said with respect to 
prayer. " Ask and ye shall receive." " If ye 
shall ask anything in My name, I will do it." 
" Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, 
I will do it." " What things soever ye desire 
when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and 
ye shall have them." These scriptures must 
mean that God answers prayer, especially those 
prayers which He inspires. 

We select only two or three examples, confin- 
ing ourselves chiefly to the New Testament. 

" Now the God of peace, that brought again 
from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shep- 
herd of the sheep, through the blood of the 
everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every 



HOLINESS SCRIPTUEAL. 69 

good work to do His will, working in you that 
which is well-pleasing in His sight, through 
Jesus Christ."— (Heb. xiii. 20-21). 

Did Paul expect an answer to this prayer ? If 
so, then they were to be perfect in this life, for 
it was to be done as a qualification for doing 
good works, which are confined to this life. Dr. 
A. Clarke has the following comment on this 
prayer : " From the following terms we see what 
the Apostle meant by the perfection for which 
he prayed. They were to do the will of God in 
every good work, from God working in them 
that w T hich is well pleasing in His sight. 1. 
This necessarily implies a complete change in 
the whole soul, that God may be well pleased 
with whatsoever He sees in it ; and this suppo- 
ses its being cleansed from all sin, for God's sight 
cannot be pleased with anything that is unholy. 
2. This complete inward purity is to produce- an 
outward conformity to God's will, so they were 
to be perfect in every good work. 3. The perfec- 
tion within and the perfection without were to 
be produced by the blood of the everlasting cove- 
nant; for although God is love, yet it is not con- 
sistent with His justice or holiness to communi- 
cate any good to mankind but through His Son, 



70 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS.. 

and through Him as having died for the offences 
of the human race." 

" And the very God of peace sanctify you 
wholly : and I pray God your whole spirit ; and 
soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto 
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thess. 
v. 23. 

Is such a prayer appropriate, if such an ex- 
perience is impossible ? If entire sanctification 
is an impossible attainment, why does the Apos- 
tle encourage the Thessalonians to expect it, by 
the assurance, " Faithful is He that calleth you, 
who also will do it? " If such a blessing is not 
for this life, how could the entirely, or wholly 
sanctified be u preserved blameless," or, in this 
sanctified state, " unto the coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ ? " Does not this prove that it is 
an experience for this world ? May not Chris- 
tians pray with confidence, believing that what- 
soever they ask in faith it shall be done ? 

" The original term rendered wholly , in this 
prayer, is compounded of two words — one olos, 
meaning all, and the other telos, meaning perfec- 
tion. The promise before us presents to our 
faith, sanctification in its utter fulness, or it au- 
thorizes us to expect nothing at all." [Mohan.) 



HOLINESS SCRIPTURAL. 71 

That this full sanctifi cation is to be enjoyed in 
this life, is clear, from the fact that the " whole 
spirit and soul and body," may u be preserved 
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." "To limit such promises," says Dr. 
Mahan, "is to 'limit the Holy One of Israel/ in a 
form which does peril to our immortal interests." 

2 Cor. xiii. 9. " This also we wish, even your 
perfection." Alford translates it, "We also 
pray for this, even your perfection." Did Paul 
expect this prayer to be answered ? If so, what 
would be an answer ? 

We select only one prayer from the Old Testa- 
ment —David's appeal to God for a clean, or pure 
heart. " Purge me with hyssop and I shall be 
clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than 
snow," (Psa. li. 7.) " Purge me with hyssop. " 
This refers to the process of symbolic cleansing, 
which represented sanctification. " And I shall 
be clean," means, then shall I be cleansed from 
moral pollution and sin. — Murphy. 

" Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." 
This is not, as some have supposed, a highly 
wrought figure of speech, but a simple petition 
for a pure heart, offered in perfect harmony with 
the Divine promise. 



72 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

The expression — " whiter than snow/' has not 
been so clear to most minds. It has been 
thought that nothing could be whiter than snow. 
But recent scientific investigations have revealed 
the fact that David was more exact in his pray- 
ing than we were in our knowledge. We have 
learned that we may be "whiter than snow." 

We copy from the Philosophical Magazine an 
account of Prof. Nordenskiold's recent investiga- 
tions of snow, which beautifully illustrate this 
prayer. " On the occasion of an extraordinary 
fall of snow which took place in Stockholm, in 
December, 1871, he was curious to know whether 
the snow, so pure in appearance, did or did not 
contain any solid extraneous particles. He ac- 
cordingly collected a large quantity of snow on 
a sheet, and obtained a small residue after it had 
melted away. This remainder consisted of a 
black powder resembling coal ; heated, it yielded 
a liquor by distillation : calcined, it was reduced 
to red brown ashes. Moreover, it contained a 
number of metallic particles attracted by the 
magnet, and giving all the reactions of iron. 

" In a large city, however, such an experiment 
could not be considered conclusive. Professor 
Nordenskiold, therefore, during his polar voyage 



HOLINESS SCEIPTUEAL. 16 

in 1872, when he was blocked up by ice as early 
as the beginning of August, in about eighty de- 
grees north latitude, before reaching Parry's is- 
land, to the northwest of Spitzbergen, examined 
the snow which covered the icebergs, and which 
had come from still higher latitudes. He found 
it strewn with a multitude of minute black par- 
ticles, spread over the surface, or situated at the 
bottom of little pits, a great number of which 
were to be seen on the outward layer of snow. 
Many of such particles were also lodged in the 
interior strata. The dust, which became grey 
on drying, contained a large proportion of metal- 
lic particles attracted by the magnet, and capable 
of decomposing sulphate of copper. An observa- 
tion made a little later upon other icebergs, 
proved the presence of similar dust, in a layer 
of granular crystalline snow, situated beneath a 
stratum of light fresh, another of hardened 
snow. Upon analysis this matter was composed 
of metallic iron, phosphorus, cobalt, and frag- 
ments of diatomaceae. It bears the greatest ana- 
logy to the dust previously collected by the 
professor on the snows of Greenland, and de- 
scribed by him under the name of Kvyoko- 
nite." 



74 SCRIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

Rev. L. R. Dunn, in speaking of these investi- 
gations, says : " Now if these investigations are 
correct, and we have no r,eason to doubt them, 
then the prayer of the Psalmist was proper, as 
well as wonderful ; and his figurative language 
is true according to the most modern scientific 
researches. These facts are of the deepest in- 
terest to the Christian when he re-utters this 
prayer, or sings of this purity. For the cleans- 
ing, the purity, realized by faith in the blood of 
the Lamb, makes the soul indeed ' whiter than 
snow/ There are not left in that soul any of the 
remains of sin, any of the elements of iniquity. 
' The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, clean seth 
us from all sin/ All the language made use of 
in the Word of God to indicate the purity which 
Christ brings to the soul is of the strongest 
character, and the figures employed are eminently 
suggestive of its entireness." 

These are examples of numerous prayers for 
heart purity. They are not offered for un- 
promised blessings, but for such as are provided 
and promised. He who prays as directed, will- 
receive the good he seeks, or God's promise fails. 
If these prayers can be answered, the doctrine of 
entire sanctification is true ; if they cannot be an- 



HOLINESS SCRIPTURAL. 75 

swered, the promise fails, and God's word is 
proved false. 

To deny that such an experience is possible 
in this life, is to charge God with inspiring 
prayers which He will not or cannot answer. It 
is also charging professedly inspired men with the 
duplicity, mockery and guilt, of praying for what 
they knew never was and never could be realized. 
u Could such prayers be offered under the inspi- 
ration of the Holy Ghost ? If not, the inspira- 
tion of so much of the Scriptures is renounced. 
But did they believe that their prayers would 
be answered and holiness restored? Then it 
was so, or they were mistaken ; if mistaken, and 
yet inspired, they were deluded by the Holy 
Ghost, and inspiration is not to be trusted. 
What fearful havoc the denial of this doctrine 
thus makes with the Word of God, and the char- 
acter and consistency of our Lord and Master, 
and of those holy men who taught it ! What- 
ever infidels may do, thus to dishonor the Word 
of God and the memory of His holiest servants, 
Christians will at least hesitate before they adopt 
a scheme so fraught with ruin." — Bishop Foster. 

4. The scriptural examples of this grace are 
numerous. 



76 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

These are found in the Old and the New Tes- 
tament, and they answer the frequent demand 
for examples of holy living — of perfect Chris- 
tians. It is not their testimony alone to their 
purity, but the testimony of God and His in- 
spired word. 

" Noah was a perfect man in his generation." 
(Gen. vi. 9.) 

Job " was perfect and upright." (Job i. 1.) 

" He was a man," says Mr. Barnes, " who was 
true, blameless, just, pious, abstaining from 
every evil deed. The Chaldees render it, complete, 
finished, perfect. The idea seems to be that His 
piety, or moral character, was proportionate, 
and was complete in all its parts. Such is pro- 
perly the meaning of the word tdm, as derived 
from tam&n, to complete, to make full, perfect 
or entire, or to finish. It denotes that in which 
there is no part lacking to complete the whole, — 
as in a watch in which no wheel is wanting." — 
Notes in loco. If Job was such a man as this, 
will any one doubt that he was pure in heart ? 

" They were both righteous before God, walk- 
ing in all the commandments and ordinances of 
the Lord blameless." (Luke i. 6). "Both 
righteous," or holy. This means more than a 



HOLINESS SCKIPTUKAL. 77 

mere external conformity to the law ; it is an 
honorable testimony to their piety towards God. 
" Blameless, that is, no fault or deficiency could 
be found in them. ' ' — [Barnes) . If Zachariah and 
Elizabeth were blameless in all the commands of 
God, it must have included the " first great com- 
mandment " — " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God, with all thy heart/' etc., and no perfection 
among mortals exceeds this. 

" I am pure from the blood of all men." — 
(Acts xx. 26). 

" I serve God with a pure conscience/' (2 Tim. 
i. 2). 

Here is external and internal purity. Paul 
was pure with respect to his duty to men. He 
failed not at any point here. He was pure in 
his service to God. His conscience did not up- 
braid him, as it was pure. Such purity as this, 
is all we mean by holiness, perfect ]ove, perfec- 
tion. 

" Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be 
thus minded." — (Phil. iii. 15). " Herein is our 
love made perfect." — (1 John iv. 17). 

These scriptures need no explanation. They 
teach, in the clearest language, that perfection 
had been attained, and was enjoyed. 



78 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

There are numerous scriptures which, prove that 
persons were regarded as perfect, pure and holy. 
They were addressed, or spoken of as persons of 
whose experience there was no question. " Mark 
the perfect man/' (Psa. xxxvii. 37). " Blessed are 
the pure in heart," (Matt. v. 8). "He that 
hath clean hands and a pure heart/ 7 (Psa. 
xxxiv. 4). " Unto the pure all things are pure/' 
(Tit. i. 15.) " We speak wisdom among them 
that are perfect/' (1 Cor. ii. 6). "God will 
not cast away a perfect man/' (Job viii. 20). 
" The wicked shout in secret at the perfect/' 
(Psa. lxiv. 4.) " Whoso keepeth his word, in him 
verily is the love of God perfected/' (1 John ii. 
5). " If we love one another, God dwelleth in 
us, and His love is perfected in us," (1 John iv. 
12). " Seeing ye have purified your souls in 
obeying the truth through the Spirit, see that ye 
love one another with a pure heart fervently, 
(1 Pet. i. 22). " Purifying their hearts by faith," 
(Acts xv. 9). 

In a multitude of other scriptures the expe- 
rience is directly asserted, or unequivocally im- 
plied. " Jesus said, if thou wilt be perfect, go 
and sell that thou hast," (Matt. xix). " Perfect 
love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. 



HOLINESS SCRIPTURAL. 79 

He that feareth is not made perfect in love," 
(1 John iv. 18). " Whom we preach, warning 
every man, and teaching every man in all wis- 
dom, that we may present every man perfect in 
Christ Jesus," (Col. i. 28). "He gave some 
apostles, and some prophets . . for the perfect- 
ing of the saints . . till we all come unto a per- 
fect man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
fulness of Christ," (Eph. iv. 11-13). " And 
every man that hath this hope in Him, purifieth 
himself, even as He [God] is pure," (1 John 
iii. 3). 

In view of these scriptural representations, it 
does seem to us, that to deny that any have 
ever attained unto this experience, is to falsify 
the Word of God in its representations of char- 
acter. There can be no meaning in all these di- 
vine utterances, if sin must remain in us until 
death frees us from it. 

Take the idea of Christian perfection, as a 
present experience, out of the Bible, and it would 
be much like sinking a city, and leaving the 
guide-boards standing pointing to it for a thou- 
sand miles around. 



CHAPTER V. 

OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 

TN" reply to the doctrine maintained in the 
-^-previous chapter, it is urged that there are 
unanswerable Scriptural objections to it — that 
certain passages in the Bible assert a contrary- 
doctrine, or cannot be reconciled with it by any 
fair construction. 

"We have no disposition to ignore this objec- 
tion, but shall seek to meet it candidly and 
squarely. We shall confine ourselves exclusively 
to Scriptural objections. Of these we shall notice 
only the most prominent, believing that if the 
strongholds are taken, the weaker positions will 
not be maintained. Let us then proceed can- 
didly to examine those Scriptures which are sup- 
posed by many to inculcate an opposite doctrine. 

" For there is not a just man upon earth, that 
doeth good, and sinneth not.'' — Ecc. vii. 2. 

(1.) The Scriptures must agree with them- 
selves. They do say, " He that is born of God 
sinneth not." — "He that sinneth, hath not 
80 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 81 

known God." — " He that committeth sin is 
of the devil," — If, then, there be no one on 
earth that sinneth not, then there is no one on 
earth who is "born of God;" no one that 
" knoweth God ;" and no one who is not " of the 
devil :" a conclusion which the most radical be- 
liever in the impossibility of living without sin 
would be unwilling to accept. 

(2.) Cannot these Scriptures be so harmonized 
as not to disparage the blood that cleanseth from 
all sin, and at the same time rescue them from 
the charge of contradiction ? 

This Scripture does not assert that freedom 
from sin is impossible. At most, it only asserts 
that it is not secured. This would not make 
against the doctrine, only against all men for 
neglecting their duty and privilege. It does 
not declare that a sinless state is unattainable — 
only, it is not attained. It is agreed by the best 
biblical scholars that the verse should be trans- 
lated, " There is not a righteous man upon earth 
who doeth good and may not sin." 

The Hebrew verb to sin, in this passage, is in 
the future tense, and should be rendered may 
not sin. The meaning of which is, that there is 
no man who is not liable to sin. 
6 



82 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

" We are supported/' says Eev. G. Peck, D.D., 
" by some of the best critics, Romish, Lutheran, 
Calvinistic and Arminian. The Vulgate, or 
Jerome's version, has non peccet } may not sin." 

11 In the interlineal translations of the Antwerp, 
London and Paris Polyglots ; in Castalio's, Osi- 
ander's, and Francis Junius' versions, we have 
the same. And we have precisely the same 
rendering of the Syriac and Arabic in the Lon- 
don and Paris Polyglot. This result I have ar- 
rived at from personal inspection of the author- 
ities I quote, and I need not say to the scholars, 
that they present a tide of evidence in favor of 
the version here given, that it is not easy for the 
sturdiest spirits to resist. We see here what 
the best scholars of any age since the commence- 
ment of the Christian era have determined in 
relation to the proper rendering of the original 
Hebrew text, without any reference at all to the 
question at issue between us and our opponents, 
on the subject of the necessary continuance of 
sin in believers/' 

This rendering of the passage in dispute har- 
monizes the Scriptures with themselves, and 
make it possible for all to be so free from sin as 
that it may no longer have dominion over them. 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 83 

Dr. A. Clarke has the following sensible note 
on this passage : " There is not a man upon 
earth, however just he may be, and habituated 
to do good, but is peccable — liable to commit 
sin ; and therefore should continually watch and 
pray, and depend upon the Lord. But the text 
does not say ; the just man does commit sin, but 
simply that he may sin. 1 ' 

Mr. Fletcher says, " If you take the original 
word to sin, in the lowest sense which it bears : 
if it mean in Eccles. vii. 20, what it does in 
Judges xx. 16, namely, to miss a mark, we shall 
not differ ; for we maintain, that, according to 
the standard of paradisiacal perfection, ' there 
is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good 
and misses not the perfection, i. e. that does not 
lessen the good he does, by some involuntary, 
and therefore (evangelically speaking) sinless 
defect.' But " it is bold to pretend to over- 
throw the glorious liberty of God's children, 
which is asserted in a hundred plain passages of 
the New Testament by producing so vague a 
text as Eccles. vii. 20. And to measure the 
spiritual attainments of all believers, in all ages, 
by this obscure standard, appears to us ridicu- 
lous." Works, vol. ii. p. 561. 



84 SCKIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

If, then, Eccles. vii. 20, lias been correctly- 
rendered by us, — and to assert the contrary, is 
to set ourselves against an array of evidence 
which no intelligent person will care to encounter 
— then it offers no objection to the doctrine we 
seek to establish in these pages. 

2. u If they shall sin against Thee (for there 
is no man that sinneth not") 1 Kings viii. 46, 
and 2 Chron. vi. 36. 

This, or these texts, are to be understood as 
having the same signification as the last named. 

" No unprejudiced person, who, in reading this 
passage/' says Mr. Fletcher, "takes the par- 
enthesis (' for there is no man that sinneth not ') 
in connection with the context, can, I think, help 
seeing that" those who quote this text against 
the doctrine of Christian perfection, " mistake 
Solomon." "The meaning is evidently, there 
is no man who is not liable to sin; and that a 
man actually sins, when he actually departs from 
God. Now, a liability to sin, is not indwelling 
sin ; for angels, Adam and Eve, were all liable 
to sin, in their sinless state." 

Our author says, " The word translated sin- 
neth, is in the future tense, which is often used for 
an indefinite tense in the potential mood, because 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 85 

the Hebrew has no such mood or tense. There- 
fore our translators would have done justice to 
the original, as well as to the context, if they 
had rendered the whole clause, l There is no man 
that may not sin; ' instead of l There is no man 
that sinneth not.'" But that there are some men 
who do not actually sin is unquestionable, for 
the following reasons : 

(1.) The hypothetical phrase, "if they shall 
sin/' proves it ; showing that their sinning is 
not unavoidable. There would be no sense in 
the u if," if sinning was a necessity. 

(2.) God's anger against those that sin. "And 
thou be angry with them." " God is angry with 
the wicked," but He delights in His saints. So 
certain then as God is not angry with all His 
people, so true it is that some do not sin in the 
sense of the wise man. 

(3.) Solomon intimates that those who have 
sinned, by actually departing from God, may 
"bethink themselves, repent and turn to God 
with all their hearts, and with all their souls/' 
and thus be so saved as not to sin. 

The passage does not furnish the most distant 
intimation that all men must y though all men 
have sinned and may sin. But let them confess 



86 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

their sins ; and they can be forgiven, and cleansed 
"from all unrighteousness/' 

3. " If I say I am perfect, it shall also prove 
me perverse/' (Job. ix. 20). 

Some very uncharitable thrusts, based upon 
this text, have been made at those who profess 
to be saved from sin. 

" It is common/' says one writer, " to find 
those who profess to be perfect, to be men of 
really no religion at all, making good that word, 
1 If I should say I was perfect, that would prove 
me perverse.' We can have no surer certificate 
of the rottenness of one's character. If other- 
wise he seems to be a Christian, that pretense 
shows that he is far from it." Cock's Centuries, 
vol. ii. p. 155. 

He must be an illiberal and uncharitable wri- 
ter, who can say all this of such men as Wesley, 
Fletcher, Bramwell, James Brainard Taylor, Drs. 
Finney, Upham, and thousands more. These 
men, while they did not profess to be perfect, 
did profess to enjoy what is meant by the term 
perfection. 

Abraham was commanded, " Walk before me 
and be thou perfect." Of Asa it is said, that 
from a given time, " His heart was perfect all his 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 87 

days." We are to " mark the perfect man/' etc. 
" The righteousness of the perfect shall direct 
his ways." Paul says, " We speak wisdom among 
those who are perfect " " Be perfect/' etc. Do 
these scriptures inculcate the idea that the 
parties named are " rotten hearted " — " have no 
religion at all ? " This proves a little too much. 

If Job did not believe himself to be perfect, it 
is evident that the Lord differed with him in 
judgment, for he affirmed " that there is none 
like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright 
man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil/' 
(i. 8). It further appears that whatever might 
have been Job's opinion of his own perfection, 
he believed that there were men who were per- 
fect. In verse 10, he says, u He [God] destroy- 
eth the perfect and the wicked." If the perfect, 
in Job's estimation, were "rotten-hearted," 
"perverse," had il no religion at all," he would 
not have distinguished them from the wicked, for 
in that case they would have been the same. 
And if a perfect man, after God's ideal, did not 
exist, it would be impossible for even God to de- 
stroy them. 

Mr. Barnes has the following note on this 
verse : " ' If I say, I am perfect. 1 Should I 



88 SCRIPT T JEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

attempt to maintain such an argument, the very 
attempt would prove that my heart is perverse 
and evil. And is not the claim to absolute per- 
fection in this world always a proof that the 
heart is perverse ? Does not the very setting up 
of such a claim in fact indicate a pride of heart, 
a self-satisfaction, and an ignorance of the true 
state of the soul, which is full demonstration that 
the heart is far from being perfect? It has 
come to a different conclusion from that of God. 
It sets up an argument against Him, — and there 
can be no more certain proof of a want of per- 
fection than such an attempt." — Barnes 1 Notes. 
Mr. Barnes denies perfection to Job, in direct 
opposition to God, who affirms that he was per- 
fect. He is careful, however, to call it " absolute 
perfection " — a term never employed by any who 
hold the doctrine, but an idea which has been 
repudiated from the beginning. il Neither is 
there," says Mr. Wesley, " any absolute perfec- 
tion on earth." But Mr. Barnes finally at- 
tributes to Job all the perfection which has ever 
been claimed for him, so far as we know. He 
says, " And that man was perfect. 11 The LXX., 
have greatly expanded this statement, by giving 
a paraphrase instead of a translation. He was 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 89 

a man who was true, blameless, just, pious, ab- 
staining from every evil deed. Jerome renders 
it, simplex, — simple, or sincere. The Chaldee, 
complete, finished, perfect. The idea seems to be 
that his piety, or moral character, was pro- 
portionate, and was complete in all its parts. 
He was a man of integrity in all the relations 
of life, — as an Emir, a father, a husband, a 
worshipper of God. Such is properly the mean- 
ing of the word tarn as derived from tdmCtm, to 
complete, to make full, perfect or entire, or to 
finish. It denotes that in which there is no part 
lacking to complete the whole, — as in a watch 
in which no wheel is wanting/' — Notes in loco. 

This is all we have claimed for Job, or any 
body else ; and this is what God calls perfection, 
or being made perfect. Job was in this sense a 
perfect man, — not absolutely perfect, but com- 
plete. He loved God with all his heart. God 
gave this testimony concerning His servant, and 
we have no right to question it. 

Should it be admitted that Job was not a per- 
fect man in his own judgment, how would that 
bear against the doctrine, or against God's judg- 
ment in the case ? It does not assert that others 
may not attain unto this state. It does not de- 



90 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

clare the attainment impossible. " To construe 
this language/' says Bishop Foster, " as appli- 
cable to all Christians at all times, is as unwar- 
rantable, as to apply all Job's words concerning 
himself to all other men. But most preposterous 
of all is it to attempt from this passage to infer 
that the Bible doctrine is that it is impossible for 
a man to be saved from all sin." 

Canne, on this text, refers the reader to Prov. 
xxvii. " Let another man praise thee, and not 
thine own mouth, a stranger, and not thine own 
lips." 

4. "Who can say, I have made my heart 
clean, I am pure from my sin?" Prov. xx. 9. 

This language may be taken as the proud 
boastings of a Pharisee ; and if so, no man of 
that description can say with propriety, " I have 
made my heart clean.'' The law of faith ex- 
cludes all boasting. 

But we might answer Solomon's question 
thus : tl The man in whom the prayer of thy 
father David is answered, ' Create in me a clean 
heart, Grod.' The man who has obeyed the 
Divine command, ■ Wash thy heart from iniquity, 
that thou mayest be saved.' The man who has 
followed the instruction of Paul, ' Let us cleanse 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 91 

ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, 
perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord/ ' 
The man who has the hope in him of seeing 
God as He is, and " purifieth himself even as He 
[God] is pure " — such a man may say, " I," by 
the grace of God, by the blood of Jesus, not by' 
any merit or work of my own, " have made my 
heart clean. " Is there any answer to be made 
to this ? 

We come now to the New Testament. 

5. "I am carnal, sold under sin," etc., Rom. 
vii. 14-25. 

This Scripture has been taken to teach that 
all believers must remain in bondage to sin un- 
til death — that there must be a life-long war- 
fare between the flesh and spirit — between 
the old man and the new. We doubt if any 
Scripture has been more frequently wrested to 
the unspeakable injury of souls than this. 

Whether the seventh of Romans refers to 
believers at all, is a question over which there 
has been very much controversy. We do not 
propose to enter into the merits of that contro- 
versy, as we have never been able to see the 
force of it. 

The Question is not whether the seventh of 



92 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

Romans describes the state of a believer, but is 
there no better state for him ? Must he ever 
remain where his cry shall be, " Who shall de- 
liver me from the body of this death ?" Must 
this body of death ever cleave to him, or may 
the " law of the Spirit of life " make him " free 
from the law of sin and death ?" 

If this chapter describes Paul's experience at 
any period of his Christian life, it surely does 
not describe that, in which he says, " How 
shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer 
therein?" "Our old man is crucified with him, 
that the body of sin might be destroyed, that 
henceforth we should not serve sin." " For he 
that is dead [dead to sin] is freed from sin." 

Read the glowing victories of the opening 
verses of the eighth chapter, and tell us, can 
that be the same experience which we have seen 
in the seventh chapter? Before, he was in 
bonds, "sold under sin;" now his bonds are 
broken and he is free, made so by the law of the 
Spirit of life. Before, he was carnal ; now he is 
spiritual. Before, the old man was alive and 
active ; now he is crucified and dead. It is to 
this latter experience we urge our readers. " Let 
not sin reign in your mortal bodies, that ye 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 93 

should obey it in the lusts thereof." But having 
so many promises, " let us cleanse ourselves from 
all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holi- 
ness in the fear of God." 

6. Pauls thorn in the flesh. 2 Cor. xii. 7. 

The apostle could not refer in this text to 
moral, but physical disabilities. The early 
writers of the Church, such as Chrysostom and 
Tertullian, insist that Paul was afflicted with 
great bodily weaknesses, and to these he most 
probably alludes in this text. The Corinthians 
had said that his " bodily presence was weak, 
and his speech contemptible." 2 Cor. x. 10. 

To assert that this thorn in the flesh was in- 
dwelling sin, and hence that the apostle was un- 
holy, is the height of absurdity. 

1. Paul says that this thorn was given to keep 
him humble, " lest he should be exalted above 
measure." But surely sin never made a man 
humble. The grace of God makes us humble, 
but sin — never. 

2. The apostle calls these afflictions " infirmi- 
ties." But " infirmities" are not indwelling sin. 

3. Paul, speaking of these '"infirmities," says, 
"most gladly, therefore, will I glory in my 
"'infirmities/" But if these ''infirmities" were 



94 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

indwelling sin, lie must have been wicked beyond 
measure, to have gloried in them. The wicked 
only do this. 

4. The apostle goes further, and says, " There- 
fore I take pleasure in infirmities. " If these 
had been indwelling sin, Satan could have done 
no worse than to have taken pleasure in them. 

5. This thorn in the flesh was given to Paul 
after his revelations to keep him humble. "Now 
as it is absurd to say that God gave him the 
thorn of indwelling sin after his 'revelation/ or 
that he gave it to him at all to keep him hum- 
ble, it cannot be indwelling sin that is meant 
by the thorn and messenger." 

6. It would seem that if sin were such a 
sovereign remedy against pride, that Paul would 
have mentioned its virtues, that his brethren 
might have availed themselves of this Satanic 
panacea ; and further, that he would have in- 
formed them how much of it was needed to 
make them humble enough to go to heaven. 
The very idea is shocking to contemplate. 

7. " Not as though I had already attained, 
either were already perfect." Phil. iii. 12. 

This is supposed to be a strong text against 
Christian perfection. But a careful examination 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 95 

of the text and its connections will lead us to a 
very different conclusion. 

The context shows what the apostle had not 
attained, and in what sense he was not perfect. 
" But what things were gain to me, those I 
counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless and I 
count all things but loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord : for whom 
I have suffered the loss of all things, and do 
count them but dung, that I may win Christ. 
If by any means I might attain unto the resur- 
rection of the dead. 1 ' Vers. 7, 8, 11. 

It is very clear from this, that what the 
apostle had not attained unto, was the glory, 
immortality, and perfection of the saints at the 
resurrection. In this sense he was not perfect, 
nor is any man until " mortality is swallowed 
up of life." But surely this has nothing to do 
with Christian perfection ? It refers to another 
state entirely. 

It is very remarkable, that immediately after 
the apostle disclaims the perfection of the resur- 
rection state, he professes the evangelical perfec- 
tion for which we contend. " Let us therefore, 
as many as be perfect, be thus minded." Ver. 15. 

Understood properly, there can be no contra- 



96 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

diction here. A Christian may be perfect in 
love, and yet not a perfect glorified saint. The 
one is freed from depravity, the other from all 
the infirmities of our mortal state. 

That saints will be more perfect in the resur- 
rection state than they are here, all admit, as 
angels and archangels may be still more perfect 
than the u saints in light/' 

" On this passage," says Dr. Mahan, " I re- 
mark, first, from a comparison of this passage 
with the phrase in verse 15, ' Let us, therefore, 
as many as be perfect/ it is evident the apostle 
considered himself perfect in one sense, in 
another, imperfect. Why, then, is the inference 
directly drawn, that in verse 12 he affirms his 
imperfection in holiness, when the opposite con- 
clusion is fully sustained by verse 15 ? But, 
second, the Apostle, it is perfectly evident from 
the context, is not here speaking of sanctification 
at all. There are three senses, somewhat differ- 
ing the one from the other, in which the verb 
here rendered perfect, as well as the adjective 
from which it is derived, are used in the Bible. 

1. To designate moral perfection, or entire 
sanctification in holiness, as 'Be ye therefore 
perfect/ Mat. v. 48. 2. Maturity in Christian 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 97 

knowledge and virtue. ' We speak wisdom 
among them that are perfect/ 1 Cor. ii. 6. 3. 
Exaltation to a state of rewards, or happiness, 
in a future world, in consequence of a life of de- 
votion to the Divine service in the present world : 
thus, Christ, as the Captain of our salvation, is 
said to have been made ■ perfect / that is, ad- 
vanced to a state of glory, through, or on account 
of suffering, Heb. ii. 10. ' Among the Greeks/ 
says Prof. Stuart, speaking upon the passage 
last referred to, l this verb was employed to de- 
signate the condition of those who, having run 
in the stadium, and proved to be victorious in 
the contest, were proclaimed as successful com- 
batants, and had the honors and rewards of 
victory bestowed upon them.' Such persons 
were said to be perfect, or to have been perfected. 
Now that the apostle used the term perfect in 
this last sense exclusively, in the verse under 
consideration, is demonstrably evident, from 
the fact that he was writing to Greeks, and used 
it with reference to the very custom in regard to 
which they had been accustomed to use the term 
in this one sense only. He represented himself 
as running a race, but not as being perfect ; that 
is, not having been advanced to a state of glory, 
7 



98 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

in consequence of having victoriously finished 
his course. It is, then, in reference to having 
finished his course and received the conqueror's 
reward, and not in reference to moral perfection, 
that the apostle uses the term t perfect ' in this 
passage/' 

" He uses the phrases, c not as though I had 
already attained, either were already perfect/ 
and 1 1 count not myself to have apprehended/ 
with exclusive respect to the ' resurrection of 
the dead/ and ' the prize of the high calling of . 
God in Christ Jesus/ that is, to the glory and 
blessedness consequent on having victoriously 
finished his Christian race. Hence Prof. Eobin- 
son ; in his Lexicon on the New Testament, thus 
explains the phrase — ' either were already per- 
fect ' — ' Not as though I had already completed 
my course and arrived at the goal, so as to re- 
ceive the prize/ In respect to holiness, an indi- 
vidual who is running the Christian race is per- 
fect, who puts forth his entire energies in that 
course. In respect to a state of glory and bless- 
edness, he is perfect when, and only when, he has 
finished his course and received the consequent 
reward. It is with exclusive reference to the 
latter, and not to the former, that the apostle 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 99 

affirms, that he had not ' attained, and was not 
perfect/ " — Christian Perfection, pp. 58, 59 ; 60. 

Nothing need be added to make this exposi- 
tion more complete. It wrests this text from 
those who would employ it to prove Christian 
perfection impossible in the present life. 

8. " If we say we have no sin, we deceive our- 
selves, and the truth is not in us." 1 John i. 8. 

Those who employ this text to disprove the 
doctrine of heart purity, are careful not to give 
.the connection, as this would completely over- 
throw their whole scheme. If this text means 
what the opponents of Christian holiness claim, 
one point is gained by them ; viz. : they have 
successfully demonstrated that the Bible contra- 
dicts itself ; and that the same writers contradict 
themselves. While the apostle declares that 
" if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, 
and the truth is not in us," he also declares, 
that "if we walk in the light as he is in the 
light, we have fellowship one with another, and 
the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us 
from all sin." 

Properly understood, there is no conflict be- 
tween these divinely inspired utterances. 

Does the phrase — " have no sin/' relate to our 



100 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

present or past character ? When the apostle 
employs the phrase, " If we say we have no sin," 
does he refer to our character, in view of what 
we now are, or of what we have been in the 
past ? There can be no doubt of its reference 
to the latter. The following reasons for this are 
given by Dr. Mahan : 

1. u The denial here spoken of stands opposed 
to the phrase 'confessing our sins/ in the follow- 
ing verse. Confession relates to past, and not 
to present sin ; it being absolutely impossible for 
a person to commit a sin, repent of it, and con- 
fess it, at one and the same moment : which 
must be the case if confession relates to sins 
which we are now committing. 

2. " In the tenth verse, the apostle repeats 
the thought contained in the phrase under con- 
sideration, in a manner which leaves no doubt 
in respect to his meaning — ' If we say we have 
not sinned, we make him a liar/ This declara- 
tion is added, to give emphasis to the affirmation, 

■ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves/ 
and is only another form of stating the same thing. 

3. " The context plainly shows, that the apostle 
is speaking of another thing altogether, than 
the question, whether a man ever attained to a 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 101 

state of entire holiness in this life. In the verse 
preceding, he says, ' If we walk in the light, as 
he is in the light, we have fellowship one with 
another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son 
cleanseth us from all sin/ He then adds, ' If 
we say we have no sin/ [to be cleansed from, to 
be forgiven] that is, l if we deny our need of the 
redemption of Christ/ we deceive ourselves, and 
the truth is not in us. Now, what class of per- 
sons existed at the time, to whom this declara- 
tion was applicable ? I answer, it was the un- 
converted Jew, who maintained, that in con- 
sequence of his obedience to the law, he was 
free from all sin, and did not need the redemp- 
tion of Christ. Such persons the apostle ad- 
dresses by saying, If we deny our need of Christ's 
redemption, by affirming our freedom from sin, 
we deceive ourselves ; and not only so, by saying 
that 'we have not sinned/ i. e., affirming that 
1 we have no sin/ we also make God a liar. 
The passage, then, refers exclusively to sinners 
who deny their need of Christ's redemption, by 
saying that they 'have not sinned,' and not to 
such men as John Wesley and James B. Taylor, 
who believed, that, by the* grace of Christ ap- 
plied to " cleanse them from all sin," they had 



102 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

" been, made perfect in love." To be made thus 
perfect, is what we are here taught to expect, as 
the consequence of " walking in the light," and 
" confessing our sins/' ' The passage, then, in- 
stead of contradicting the doctrine under con- 
sideration, when rightly explained, altogether 
favors the doctrine. What else can be the mean- 
ing of the declarations, " If we walk in the light, 
as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with 
another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son 
cleanseth us from all sin ?" . Also, " If we con- 
fess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us 
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous- 
ness?" — Christian Perfection, pp. 61-62. 

9. Such a state attained would render the 
Lord's Prayer useless. , " Forgive us our debts, 
as we forgive our debtors/' — Matt. vi. 12. 

It is argued that this prayer is for all, and to 
be used at all times; and that consequently 
Christians will always have sins to confess, or 
will never arrive at a state of perfect holiness in 
this life. 

If absolute holiness was insisted upon, then 
might this thing be ; but as no such thing is 
claimed, we are not able to see the force of this 
objection. 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 103 

Man, while in the flesh, at least, will remain 
fallible ; consequently, liable to err ; and if liable 
to err, liable to sin through his mistakes. An 
act may be done ignorantly, which is, neverthe- 
less, a violation of the perfect law of God. And 
there is nothing improper in asking God to for- 
. give even such sins. Under the Mosaic economy 
there were acts denominated " errors;" com- 
mitted " unawares," "unwittingly," for which a 
" sin-offering " was provided. — Levit. iv. This 
offering was provided for " the priests," " the 
whole congregation," for " the rulers," and for 
"one of the common people;" showing that all 
classes were liable to commit $uch sins. These, 
be it remembered, were sins " unwittingly," or 
" ignorantly " committed ; things done " un- 
awares." And yet they needed a " sin-offer- 
ing " — an atonement. 

We cannot do better than quote Dr. Daniel 
Steele's concluding notes on Leviticus, chapter iv. 

(1.) " Ethical writers insist that the moral 
sense of mankind pronounces innocent the inad- 
vertent doer of an act wrong in itself. They 
declare that there is a broad distinction between 
wrong and guilt on the one hand, and right and 
innocence on the other ; and that guilt always in- 



104 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

volves a knowledge of the wrong and an inten- 
tion to commit it. Hence in the light of the 
moral philosophies filling our libraries and taught 
in our .colleges, a sin of inadvertence or ignorance 
needs no expiation. The punishment of such 
sins by human judicatories, it is asserted, would 
be an outrage against which every good man 
would cry out. Nevertheless, so great are the 
interests intrusted to men in certain positions 
that severe penalties are attached to careless- 
ness, as in the handling of poisons by physicians 
and apothecaries, the involuntary sleep of a 
weary sentinel at his post, or in the case of the 
bridge-tender, who, through a misapprehension 
of the hour of the day, has the draw open when 
the express train arrives. These are inadvertent 
sins which men regard and punish as crimes. 
Now what the exigencies of human society re- 
quire in a few cases, the perfect moral govern- 
ment of God demands in all cases — satisfaction 
for involuntary sins. But there is this differ- 
ence. God always provides an atonement for 
such sins, and never executes sentence till the 
atonement has been rejected. Where the ex- 
piation cannot be known and applied He forbears 
to inflict the penalty. The time of this ignor- 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 105 

ance God overlooked. Acts xvii. 30. Hence 
the law of God is more merciful than the law of 
man, which, in the cases specified, makes no pro- 
vision for escaping the punishment of involun- 
tary offences. The objection which some have 
raised against the Divine government for holding 
errors and inadvertences as culpable and penal, 
falls to the ground when we find the first an- 
nouncement of this fact accompanied by the in- 
stitution of the sin-offering. 

(2.) " Though a well-meant mistake does not 
defile the conscience and bring the soul into con- 
demnation, it nevertheless demands a penitent 
confession and a presentation of the great Sin- 
Offering unto a God of absolute holiness. The 
refusal to do this, since the sin-offering is pro- 
vided, involves positive guilt. Says John Wes- 
ley, Not only sin, properly so called, that is, a 
voluntary transgression of a known law; but 
sin improperly so called, that is, an involuntary 
transgression of a Divine law, known or un- 
known, needs the atoning blood. I believe there 
is no such perfection in this life as excludes these 
involuntary transgressions which I apprehend to 
be naturally consequent on the ignorance and 
mistakes inseparable from mortality. Therefore 



106 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

sinless perfection is a phrase I never use, lest I 
should seem to contradict myself. I believe a 
person filled with the love of God is still liable 
to these involuntary transgressions.' Hence 
Chas. Wesley sings, 

1 Every moment, Lord, I want 
The merit of Thy death.' " 

Such are the errors, the inadvertences, the 
mistakes of our lives, resulting from ignorance, 
intellectual weakness, and a thousand other 
causes aside from heart depravity, in regard to 
which we shall always have occasion to pray, 
" Forgive us our debts." We have no sympathy 
with the idea that the Lord's Prayer is not in- 
tended for Christians, that its petitions are not 
made in the name of Jesus, etc. We believe it 
appropriate at all times, and for all men — saint 
and sinner — any where during probation. 

We have now briefly noticed the main Scrip- 
tural objections urged against the doctrine of 
holiness. There are other Scriptures which are 
employed for this purpose, but these are the 
strongest. We have seen, that when properly 
understood, they teach no such doctrine, but in 
many cases just the reverse. 

Dr. Mahan gives us his experience while 



OBJECTIONS TO HOLINESS. 107 

searching for the truth on this subject, which we 
commend to all as worthy of imitation. 

" The question, what are our revealed privi- 
leges, is to be settled not by an appeal to the 
conscious or visible attainments of any individual 
or class of individuals, but wholly and exclu- 
sively by reference i to the law and to the testi- 
mony .-' The Spirit of the Lord does know, and 
He only can know, what ' things are possible 
with God ' on the one hand, and what ' things 
are possible to him that belie veth ' on the other. 
In determining the possibilities of faith, we must 
refer exclusively to what God, by His Spirit, 
has taught us on the subject. 

" In my endeavors to find the true revealed 
answer to such inquiries, I judge, that I may 
truly say, that I proceeded with the greatest 
care and circumspection. I at once perceived 
that if God, as many suppose He has, has abso- 
lutely revealed the fact, that no believer in 
Christ ever had been, or ever will be, in this 
life, saved from all sin, that settles forever the 
whole question. My first inquiry therefore, was 
directed to all those passages which, as I had 
supposed, and many do suppose, do teach the 
doctrine of Christian Imperfection, that is, of 



108 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

the continued sinfulness of all believers in Jesus. 
In my examination. I determined to take each 
passage by itself, and, in the clear light of the 
known and acknowledged laws of interpretation, 
determine its real meaning, and then its bearing 
upon the inquiry before us. This I did, and, to 
my surprise, found that not one of these passages 
presented the remotest evidence in favor of the 
doctrine it had been supposed to teach. 

" I then turned to the inquiry, What do the 
Scriptures directly and positively teach in re- 
spect to the privileges of the ' sons of God ' in 
this life ? On this subject, as I found, the teach- 
ings of the Bible are of the plainest and most 
absolute character possible.' ' — Out of Darkness 
into Light, pp. 357-358. 

Whoever adopts the same method, with a firm 
desire to know " the truth as it is in Jesus," will 
come to a like conclusion. But if we first pre- 
judge the question, and depend on passages we 
have never examined, and object because others 
have objected, we shall likely reach the opposite 
conclusion. Let us a know the truth, and the 
truth shall make us free." 



CHAPTER VI. 

HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVERSION. 

THAT a distinction exists between conver- 
sion and entire sanctification is clear to 
those who know the experience. But while 
such are able to testify that a marked difference 
exists, they are not all able to define it. In 
fact, there is no other way to explain Christian 
experience but to admit that such a distinction 
exists. 

" If the idea should become prevalent," says 
Dr. Upham, "that justification and sanctifica- 
tion are the same thing, it w T ould involve the 
subject of sanctification, and perhaps that of 
justification, in much confusion." 

A recent writer * asserts that u it is admitted 
indeed by all classes of Methodist writers, that, 
in some cases, the inner cleansing is complete in 
regeneration." This is a mistake. They do 
admit that it may be, but not that it is. Mr. 
Wesley is introduced in a case where he allows 

* Dr. Crane, li Birthright, etc," p. 131. 

109 



110 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

an objector to speak, who is made to affirm; 
" Some who are newly justified come up to this 
standard. What will you say to these ?■'" To 
this Mr. Wesley answers, "If they really do, 
I will say they are sanctified, saved from sin, in 
that moment, and that they never need lose 
what God has given, or feel sin any more. But 
certainly this is an exempt case." 

Does Mr. Wesley here say that any soul is 
entirely sanctified at conversion? If so, what is 
meant by " if they really do ? " " Admit it is 
so; or whether or not it be so," he would say, 
it is " certainly an exempt case." But this is 
not saying that it is so. Mr. Wesley admits 
that he never met a case of the kind. 

Dr. Crane quotes Wesley again as saying: 
" Sometimes He cuts short His work. He does the 
work of many years in a few weeks ; perhaps in 
a week, a day, an hour. He justifies or sancti- 
fies both those who have not had time for a 
gradual growth either in light or grace/' 

Dr. Crane then proceeds to cite cases illustra- 
tive of Wesley's doctrine, that God sometimes 
converts and sanctifies at the same time ; and 
among them is the case of Grace Paddy, of 
Redruth. About ten in the morning she was 



HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVERSION. Ill 

powerfully converted. "All her trouble was 
gone, and all her sins were blotted out." In 
the evening, under the preaching of Mr. Rankin, 
she was convicted of her need of heart purity, 
and in the society meeting which followed, 
during Mr. Rankin's last prayer, she "was 
quite overwhelmed with the power of God," and 
" felt an inexpressible change in the very depth 
of her heart." Of this case Mr. Wesley says: 
" Such an instance I never knew before ; such 
an instance I never read ; a person convinced 
of sin, converted to God, and renewed in love 
within twelve hours ! Yet it is by no means 
incredible, seeing one day is with God as a 
thousand years." — Works, vol. iv. p. 219. 

Dr. Crane proceeds : " Wesley accepted these 
cases as genuine, and was, therefore, wholly 
consistent when he admitted the possibility of a 
soul's finding pardon, and the cleansing from 
all unrighteousness the self-same hour." — p. 133. 

It is difficult for us to understand how a 
writer can intelligently make such a state- 
ment. Here is Mr. Wesley relating a single 
case, unlike anything he had ever u seen " or 
" read," — a soul converted and entirely sancti- 
fied within the period of u twelve hours " — the 



112 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

two works approximating each other more nearly 
than he had ever seen or read of before ; and 
yet this fact renders him consistent in admitting 
that the two works may be wrought in " the 
self-same hour." 

This proves - conclusively that Mr. Wesley 
never saw nor read of a case where the whole 
work was wrought at one and the same time. 
Grace Paddy came nearer it than any one he 
had ever known, and yet in her case there were 
twelve hours intervening between her conversion 
and entire sanctification. And yet Dr. Crane 
insists that Mr. Wesley taught that the whole 
work, is wrought at one and the same time. 

The reasons assigned by Dr. C. for Mr. 
Wesley's views on this subject are very re- 
markable. 

1. The Ninth Article of the Church of Eng- 
land declares "that the infection of nature 
remains in the regenerate, and Wesley claimed 
to be a loyal son of the Church/' consequently 
he must believe it. 

2. "But there was still another ecclesiastical 
lion in the way. Wesley held the doctrine of 
baptismal regeneration/' Such a belief induced 
him to hold that all baptized sinners were re- 



HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVERSION. 113 

generated, and if regenerated, then every such 
person, when properly converted, was, in his 
judgment, entirely sanctified. Let us see. 

It does not appear from the record that Wes- 
ley was such " a loyal son of the Church " as to 
accept a false doctrine for the sake of showing 
his loyalty. Did he not repudiate to the last 
many of the leading doctrines of the Church of 
England, such as the doctrine of election, the 
doctrine of Apostolic succession, which she 
claimed to hold, and did hold ? Did he not ad- 
vocate with great earnestness the doctrine of the 
Witness of the Spirit, which she discarded ? He 
held, and persistently urged upon his people the 
doctrine and experience of heart purity, with his 
Church ridiculing and denouncing him at every 
step. And now Dr. Crane would have us believe 
that he held the doctrine that entire sanctifica- 
tion was a work wrought in the soul subsequent 
to conversion, not because it was taught in the 
Bible, nor because it was true, but because it 
was found in the Ninth Article of the Church 
of England. And yet, when he transcribed that 
article for his own societies, he omitted that very 
sentence upon which, at least, one half of his 
faith rested ! What right has any man to make 
8 



114 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

such an assertion? There is not the shadow 
of evidence for such a statement. 

But Mr. Wesley's doctrine of il baptismal re- 
generation " was " another ecclesiastical lion in 
his way." 

Mr. Wesley accepted the dogma of baptismal 
regeneration it is claimed, and in so doing was 
greatly relieved by the " other doctrine, that such 
regeneration is very imperfect." " When Mr. 
Wesley found himself assailed with stones and 
mud, and dragged through the .streets by a 
drunken mob of these baptismal regenerates, 
profane, brutal, murderous, headed perhaps by a 
wicked cleric, who claimed that his own hands 
had inducted them into the kingdom of heaven, 
he might well suspect that at least some degree 
of depravity survived the baptismal process. 
May not these things have had an influence to 
lead him to the conclusion that even after re- 
generation, which followed repentance and faith, 
something more is needed to complete renewal?" 
P. 139. 

One is almost instinctively inclined to ask, " Is 
this writer in earnest ? Is he sincere ? Does 
he believe what he says ? Or is he trifling 
with his readers ?" 



HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVEBSION, 115 

If Wesley believed the doctrine of bap- 
tismal regeneration, of which there is very 
serious doubt, he believed that the grace then 
imparted could be lost, and was lost in all such 

sinners as Dr. C refers to. Is any one 

foolish enough to believe that Wesley, because 
he held the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, 
believed that those " mobs/' ungodly " clerics/' 
and all, were regenerated, at the time they were 

committing such abominations ? So Dr. 

would have us believe. 

Wesley held that all such persons, notwith- 
standing their baptism, were as ungodly as those 
who had never heard of Christianity. 

Whenever any of those wicked persons, who 
enjoyed "baptismal regeneration/' were con- 
verted, then, to make Dr. Crane's theory good, 
Mr. Wesley should have regarded them at once 
as wholly sanctified. But did he so regard 
them ? No ; and for the following reasons : 

1. He never met but one case where the con- 
version and sanctification came very near to- 
gether; and in that case there were twelve 
hours intervening. 

2. The great mass of his converts were 
from among those very persons. And when 



116 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

they were converted and added to the Society, 
he urged them, and exhorted his preachers to 
urge them, to go on unto perfection, which would 
not have been, had he believed they were sancti- 
fied when they were simply converted. 

"What is the distinction between the two 
experiences — conversion and entire sanctifica- 
tion ? 

1. Conversion inquires, how can the sins 
which are past be forgiven, and I become a 
member of the household of faith ? Entire 
sanctification inquires, how can I be cleansed 
from conscious impurity, and be made meet for 
the kingdom of glory ? I have my title in con- 
version ; I have my meetness in heart purity. 

" Justification," says Mr. Wesley, "is the for- 
giveness of all our sins, and what is necessarily 
implied therein, our acceptance with God." It 
" expels the love of the world, the love of plea- 
sure, of ease, of honor, of money ; together with 
pride, anger, self-will, and every other evil/' 
"How naturally do those who experience such a 
change imagine that all sin is gone, that it is 
utterly rooted out of the heart, and has no more 
place therein. How easily do we draw that in- 
ference — I feel no sin, therefore I have none : it 



HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVERSION. 117 

does not stir, therefore it does not exist : it has 
no motion, therefore it has no being ! " 

Sanctiflcation is "love, joy, peace, always 
abiding ; but invariably long-suffering, patience, 
resignation ; gentleness, triumphing over all pro- 
vocation ; goodness, mildness, sweetness, tender- 
ness of spirit; fidelity, simplicity, godly sin- 
cerity; meekness, calmness, evenness of spirit; 
temperance, not only in food and sleep, but in 
all things natural and spiritual." 

Then comes the emphatic question, " Have 
we not all this when we are justified ? " 

" What/' he replies, " total resignation to the 
will of God without any mixture of self-will ? 
gentleness, without any touch of anger, even the 
moment we are provoked? love to God, without 
the least love to the creature, but in and for 
God, excluding all pride ? love to man, excluding 
all envy, all jealousy,. and rash judging? meek- 
ness, keeping the whole soul inviolably calm ? 
and temperance in all things ? Deny that any 
ever came up to this, if you please, but do not 
say all who are justified do." 

If any really come up to this experience who 
are newly justified, " I will say," says Mr. Wes- 
ley, " they are sanctified, saved from sin in that 



118 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

moment. But certainly this is an exempt case. 
It is otherwise with the generality of those that 
are justified." 

Some insist that Mr. Wesley's descriptions of 
regeneration involve those of entire sanctifica- 
tion. A careful examination of the language 
employed, will convince any candid mind that 
it is not so. 

Mr. Wesley speaks of justification expelling 
the love of the world, pleasure, ease, etc., but 
not all love of the world ; all love of pleasure ; 
all love of ease. When he speaks of sanctifica- 
tion, it is love to God without the least love of 
the creature ; love to man, excluding all envy, 
etc. He believed that all the fruits of the 
Spirit existed in regeneration, but not as in 
entire sanctification. The one was the work 
begun, the other was the work completed. This 
distinction makes Mr. Wesley's descriptions 
clear and intelligible. 

2. In conversion the soul rests from condem- 
nation for all past sins. In entire sanctification 
the soul rests from all internal discordancies. 

" There is no condemnation to them who are 
in Christ Jesus." The song of the heart is, 



HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVERSION. 119 

" No condemnation now I dread, 

Jesus, with all in Him, is mine ; 
Alive in Him, my living Head, 

And clothed in righteousness divine, 
Bold I approach th' eternal throne, 
And claim the crown, through Christ my own." 

While we may be well able to go up and 
possess the land, there are, nevertheless, enemies 
to be expelled. And hence the cry, 

u Come O my Joshua, bring me in ; 

Cast out the foes, the inbred sin, 

The carnal mind remove." 

These evils show themselves in many ways 
well known to an unsanctified heart. The affec- 
tions clamor for forbidden objects — objects con- 
demned by the conscience, and resisted by the 
will. The mind does not readily drop them, 
and turn away from them, in utter loathing, 
because they are offensive to God, and keep up 
a war in the soul. 

But entire sanctification is soul-rest. 

" A rest where all our soul's desire 
Is fixed on things above ; 
Where fear, and sin, and grief expire, 
Cast out by perfect love." 

There is rest from internal discord. Eest 



120 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

from anxious solicitude. Eest from fearful 
forebodings. " They have entered into rest." 
Anger, pride, envy, and all irregular desires, 
which have been under control in conversion, 
and have not been allowed to reign, no longer 
exist, having been removed. 

3. Conversion is deliverance from the volun- 
tary commission of sin ; entire sanctification is 
deliverance from the being of sin. 

This idea is very clearly presented by Bishop 
Hedding. He says : " The difference between 
a justified soul who is not fully sanctified, and 
one fully sanctified, I understand to be this : 

" The first (if he do not backslide) is kept from 
voluntarily committing known sin, which is what 
is commonly meant in the New Testament by 
committing sin. But he yet finds in himself the 
remains of inbred corruption or original sin ; 
such as pride, anger, envy, a feeling of hatred 
to an enemy, a rejoicing at a calamity which 
has fallen upon an enemy, etc. 

" Now in all this the regenerate soul does not 
act voluntarily ; his choice is against all these 
evils ; God has given him a new heart which 
hates all these evils, and resists and overcomes 
them as soon as the mind perceives them. 



HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVERSION. 121 

Though the Christian does not feel guilty for 
this depravity as he would do if he had volun- 
tarily broken the law of God ; yet he is often 
grieved and afflicted, and reproved at a sight of 
this sinfulness of his natur'e. 

" Though the soul in this state enjoys a de- 
gree of religion, yet it is conscious it is not what 
it ought to be, -nor what it must be to be fit for 
heaven. 

"The second, or person fully sanctified, is 
cleansed from all these inward involuntary sins. 

" He may be tempted by Satan, by men, and 
by his own bodily appetites to commit sin, but 
his heart is free from these inward fires, which, 
before his full sanctification, were ready to fall 
in with temptation and lead him into transgres- 
sion. He may be tempted to be proud, to love 
the world, to be revengeful or angry, to hate an 
enemy, to wish him evil, or to rejoice at his 
calamity, but he feels none of these passions in 
his heart ; the Holy Ghost has cleansed him 
from all these pollutions of his nature. Thus it 
is that, being emptied of sin, the perfect Christ- 
ian is filled with the love of God, even with that 
perfect love which casteth out fear." — Ser- 
mon preached before the New Jersey Conference, 



122 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

18.41, and published by vote of the Confer- 
ence. 

This is so plain that the child may understand 
it, and so much in harmony with Christian ex- 
perience that comment is unnecessary. 

ic Begeneration," says Bishop Hamline, "is 
like breaking up the fallow ground and sowing 
it with wheat, in the growth of which there 
spring up tares. It is a mixed moral state. 
Sanctification is like weeding the soul, or gather- 
ing the tares and burning them, so that nothing 
remains to grow there but good seed. In re- 
generation a spiritual growth is like the slow 
progress of the wheat, choked and made sickly 
by the intermingling weeds. Entire sanctifica- 
tion removes them, roots them out of the heart, 
and leaves it a pure moral soil." 

Bev. William Arthur has some beautiful and 
striking illustrations of this distinction. 

"A piece of iron is dark and cold; imbued 
with a certain degree of heat, it becomes almost 
burning without any change of appearance ; im- 
bued with a still greater degree, its very appear- 
ance changes to that of solid fire, and it sets fire 
to whatever it touches. A piece of water with- 
out heat is solid and brittle ; gently warmed it 



HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVERSION. 123 

flows ; further heated it mounts to the sky. An 
organ, filled with the ordinary degree of air 
which exists every where, is dumb ; the touch 
of the player can elicit but a clicking of the keys. 
Throw in not another air, but an unsteady cur- 
rent of the same air, and sweet, but imperfect 
and uncertain notes immediately respond to the 
player's touch; increase the current to a full 
supply, and every pipe swells with music. Such 
is the soul without the Holy Ghost, and such 
are the changes which pass upon it when it re- 
ceives the Holy Ghost, and when it is filled with 
the Holy Ghost."— Tongue of Fire, p. 61. 

Bishop Foster says, " When a soul is regener- 
ated, all the elements of holiness are imparted to 
it, or the graces are implanted in it, in complete 
number, and the perfection of these graces is 
entire sanctification ; and hence, we insist that 
entire sanctification does not take place in re- 
generation, for the graces are not then perfected. 
And again : though in regeneration all the ele- 
ments of holiness are imparted, all the rudiments 
of inbred sin are not destroyed ; and hence again 
the absence of complete sanctification, which, 
when it occurs, expels sin. Regeneration is in- 
cipient sanctification in this sense — it is of the 



124 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

same nature as sanctification, and, so far as it 
extends, is sanctification ; it is included in entire 
sanctification, but is not so extensive ; it is a de- 
gree, but not the whole of that work." — Christian 
Purity, p. 109. 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVEESION. 

The Faith of the Christian Church. 

HHHE doctrine, that the work of entire holi- 
-*- ness is wrought in the soul subsequent to 
conversion, has been, and so far as we know, is, 
the faith of every Evangelical Church in 
Christendom. 

" Every Reformed Church of Europe and 
America, agree that there is an infection of 
nature remaining in them that are regenerated. 
Augustine and Calvin are not stronger in their 
assertion of this fact than are Arminius and 
Wesley. It is.no small presumption in favor of 
the truth of a doctrine, that it has remained un- 
questioned through all the fierce battles of pole- 
mical theologians, and all the reformers of the 
Church, and all the restatements of Christian 
truth:'— Dr. D. Steele. 

" The contrary opinion/' says Mr. Wesley, "is 
wholly new ; never heard of in the Church of 
Christ, from the time of His coming into the 

125 



126 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

world till the time of Count Zinzendorf : — and 
it is attended with the most fatal consequences." 
(Works, vol. i., p. 115.) 

He further states, that " it is a doctrine so 
new, that it was never heard of for seventeen 
hundred years ; never till it was discovered by- 
Count Zinzendorf. I do not remember to have 
seen the least intimation of it, either in any an- 
cient or modern writer ; unless, perhaps, in some 
of the wild, ranting Antinomians." " It is true 
that when the Germans were pressed upon this 
head, they soon allowed that sin did still remain 
in the flesh, but not in the heart of a believer : 
and after a time, when the absurdity of this was 
shown, they fairly gave up the point, allowing 
that sin did still remain, though it did not reign 
in him that is born of God. But the English, 
who had received it from the Germans, were not 
so easily prevailed upon to part with a favorite 
opinion : and even when the generality of them 
were convinced it was utterly indefensible, a few 
could not be persuaded to give it up, but main- 
tain it to this day." — Works, vol. i., p. 108. 

In the Ninth of the Thirty-nine Articles of 
Religion of the Church of England, it is de- 
clared that " Original sin is the corruption of 



THE FAITH OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. . 127 

the nature of every man, that naturally is en- 
gendered of the offspring of Adam." " And 
this infection of nature doth remain, yea, in 
them that are regenerated/' 

This article has stood as a bulwark against 
the doctrine of Zinzendorf and those who follow 
him. It is in perfect accord with the experience 
of those who have been regenerated. 

The Larger Westminster Catechism, the form- 
ulated faith of the Presbyterian Church, has 
the following statement of this doctrine : " The 
imperfection of sanctification in believers, ariseth 
from the remnants of sin abiding in every part 
of them, and the perpetual lustings of the flesh 
against the spirit ; whereby they are often foiled 
with temptations, and fall into many sins, and 
are hindered in all their spiritual services. " 

The Presbyterian Church in the United States, 
in her Confession of Faith, Chap, xiii., says of 
sanctification ; " They who are effectually called 
and regenerated, having a new heart and a new 
spirit created in them, are farther sanctified, 
really and personally, through the virtue of 
Christ's death and resurrection, by His word and 
Spirit dwelling in them." 

With regard to the faith of the German Ke- 



128 SCRIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

formed Church in the United States, we quote 
from Rev. Dr. Samuel Helffenstein's Theology, pp. 
324, 325. " Sanctification is that act of God's free 
grace, whereby believers are gradually cleansed 
from the remains of sin and indwelling corrup- 
tion, and renewed after the image of God. The 
work is commenced in regeneration ; the princi- 
ple of spiritual life is then implanted, and the man 
is renewed in knowledge after the image of God, 
'and in true righteousness and holiness. This 
work, thus commenced in regeneration, is carried 
on in sanctification.' ' 

Rev. Alvah Hovey, D. D., of the Newton 
Theological School, has spoken the sentiments of 
the Baptist denomination on this subject. He 
says ; " The experience of Christians, immedi- 
ately after conversion, is not the highest which 
they should expect in this life." " The work of 
renewal is only begun, not finished, by regenera- 
tion." "As he (the Spirit of God,) regenerates 
the soul by imparting to it a holy disposition, 
so he carries on the work thus begun by increas- 
ing the power of that disposition, and subduing 
the evil tendencies which oppose it." — Higher 
Christian Life, pp. 11, 12. 

These authorities show clearly that on one 



THE FAITH OF THE CHRISTIAN CHUKCH. 129 

point there is harmony of faith among all the 
Churches. They all hold that regeneration does 
not free the soul from depravity. This is a 
strong presumptive argument in favor of the 
doctrine. 

" The sum of all is this," says Mr. Wesley ; 
" there is in every person, even after he is justi- 
fied, two contrary principles, nature and grace, 
termed by St. Paul, the flesh and spirit. Hence, 
although even babes in Christ are sanctified, yet 
it is only in part. In a degree, according to the 
measure of their faith, they are spiritual ; yet in 
a degree they are carnal. And to this agrees 
the constant experience of the children of God. 
While they feel this witness in themselves, they 
feel a will not wholly resigned to the will of God. 
They know they are in Him, yet find a heart 
ready to depart from Him ; a proneness to evil 
in manv instances, and a backwardness to that 
which is good/ 5 — Works, vol. i., p. 115. 

" That a distinction exists," says Mr. Watson, 
" between a regenerate state and a state of entire 
and perfect holiness, will be generally allowed. 
Regeneration, we have seen, is concomitant with 
justification; but the apostles, in addressing the 
body of believers in the churches to whom they 
9 



130 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

wrote their epistles, set before them, both in the 
prayers they offer in their behalf and in the ex- 
hortations they administer, a still higher degree 
of deliverance from sin, as well as a higher 
growth in Christian virtues." — Institutes, part 
ii., chap. 29. 

(i The distinction/' says Dr. Upham, u is evi- 
dently made in the Scriptures. The passages 
of Scripture where it is clearly recognized are 
so numerous and so familiar to attentive readers 
of the Bible that it seems to be hardly necessary 
to quote them at any length. e And the very 
God of peace/ says the apostle, (1 Thess. v. 23,) 
'sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your 
whole spirit, and soul and body be preserved 
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ/ And again, 2 Cor. vii. 1 : l Having, 
therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us 
cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh 
and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God/ 
It is very evident, from the general tenor of the 
apostle's communications to them, that these ex- 
hortations were addressed to those whom he re- 
garded, and had reason to regard, as justified 
persons. He felt, nevertheless, although they 
were justified, — although their sins were blotted 



THE FAITH OF THE CHRISTIAN CHUECH. 131 

out, — that there was much remaining to be done 
in the matter of their present and prospective 
sanctification. Hence his exhortations to pre- 
serve their bodies blameless, to cleanse them- 
selves, and to perfect holiness in the fear of God, 
which would have been unnecessary if he had 
considered the work of sanctification as absolutely 
and necessarily involved in that of justification." 
i — Interior Life, p. 173. 

"The denial of it" [depravity in believers] 
"is a position," says Eev. Dr. Dempster, "utterly 
novel. It is less than two centuries old. Till 
that modern date, no part of the Greek or Latin 
Churches was ever infested with it. And in the 
Eeformed Churches it was never heard of only 
among a few raving Antinomians." — Sermon. 

Rev. Dr. Curry says, c< This carnal mind sur- 
vives the work of regeneration, and is often 
actively rebellious in the hearts of real Chris- 
tians." 

Eev. Dr. Hodge says, "According to the 
Scriptures, and the undeniable evidence of his- 
tory, regeneration does not remove all sin." — 
Systematic TJieology, vol. iii. p. 290. 

Eev. Bishop Thomson says, " The justified and 
regenerate discover in themselves the remains 



132 SCKIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

of the carnal mind." — Last Address, West Va. 
Conference. 

These citations prove, that on the subject of 
a residue of depravity ; in the hearts of believers 
who have been justified only ; there is no differ- 
ence of opinion. It is a truth as universally 
accepted by all evangelical Christians as justifi- 
cation by faith. The contrary opinion, which 
has found a few advocates in modern times, ar- 
rays itself boldly against the faith of the united 
Christian Church. It says to every Church, and 
to all the great lights of Christendom, with here 
and there an insignificant exception in modern 
times, you are all in error ; you have all misin- 
terpreted the Scriptures and experience; we 
know more than you all. If you claim that the 
doctrine is Scriptural, we deny it. We know 
more of their import than you all. If you claim 
that experience confirms your views, we deny it, 
claiming to know more of experience than the 
combined wisdom and piety of the ages. This 
is the position occupied by the advocates of the 
theory that the soul is wholly sanctified when 
converted. The modesty of the position is not 
enviable. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVERSION, 
THE EXPERIENCE OF BELIEVERS. 

TTTHILE we rely mainly upon the voice of 
* V inspiration for proof of the possible at- 
tainment of heart purity, we must not overlook, 
or in any sense ignore the value of human testi- 
mony. If the witnesses are competent; if they 
are not influenced by motives of a personal 
character ; if they have had ample time to test 
their experience ; and if amidst the awful real- 
ities of death, they have still adhered to their 
faith and experience ; next to the Word of God, 
their testimony is the most valuable, because 
most reliable. On the subject of the two works, 
there are witnesses of unimpeachable integrity. 
Dr. Crane inquires : " Tell us where any ser- 
vant of God, walking in all the ordinances and 
commandments of the Lord blameless, ever be- 
came distressed on account of the residuary de- 
pravity left in him, sought deliverance from it 
by a new consecration, and a special act of faith, 

133 



134 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

succeeded and obtained a special witness of the 
Spirit that the work was done ? " 

The Doctor, as all must see, raises a false is- 
sue ; as no one, so far as we know, claims that 
those who " walk in all the ordinances and com- 
mandments of the Lord blameless" are not fully 
saved. But the real issue is, do all " babes in 
Christ " walk in the manner here described ? 
They do, if Dr. Crane's views are correct ; they 
do not, if St. Paul and the testimony of believers 
are to be credited. 

It becomes a question of fact, attested by con- 
sciousness, and settled by an appeal to testimony. 
" To disbelieve all the professors," says Mr. 
Wesley, " amounts to a denial of the thing." 

We shall proceed to prove that the doctrine 
denied by Dr. Crane, is in harmony with ex- 
perience. 

The witnesses are carefully selected, and are 
found to agree in three points covering the con- 
troversy. 

1. They testify to a conversion of which thejre 
can be no doubt. It is as clear as light. 

2. They further state that after a clear and 
satisfactory conversion, and with no conscious- 
ness of backsliding, or in any way losing their 



THE EXPERIENCE OF BELIEVERS. 135 

faith, but in the midst of active efforts to pro- 
mote the cause of Christ, and to save men, to 
their great surprise and mortification, they found 
within their hearts evils, such as pride, anger, 
unbelief, envy, and other irregular desires, which 
greatly troubled them. 

3. They further give evidence, that believing 
it to be their privilege to secure freedom from 
these manifest evidences of depravity, they 
earnestly sought and consciously found the free- 
dom they so ardently desired. 

This second blessing, as they call it, was as 
clearlv marked as their conversion : and after 
they became conscious of its reception, the evils, 
which formerly gave them so much trouble, were 
all removed, and for years they joyfully sang 
of 

lt A heart in every thought renewed, 
And full of love divine : 
Perfect, and right, and pure, and good, 
A copy, Lord, of Thine." 

If the witnesses are clear on these points, the 
controversy, so far as human testimony is con- 
cerned, is at an end. 

Lest denominational prejudices might be sup- 



136 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

posed to bias the witnesses, they are selected 
from different denominations. 

Rev. William Bramwell. Mr. B. speaks of 
his conversion thus : "I had prepared myself 
with much prayer and self-examination for 
worthily partaking of the sacrament of the 
Lord's supper, and while in the act of receiving 
it from the hand of Eev. Mr. Wilson, a pious 
clergyman of Preston, I obtained a clear sense 
of pardon. My spirit rejoiced in God my Sa- 
viour. Darkness and gloom, guilt and condemna- 
tion, were at once removed in a manner incom- 
prehensible to me, and utterly beyond all that I 
had ever been taught to expect or desire/' 

There can be no doubt as to the genuineness 
of this conversion. It is one of those strongly 
marked and clearly defined changes which leave 
no doubt. 

What transpired subsequent to his conversion, 
is told in the following words : " Being obedi- 
ent to the teachings of the Spirit, [i. e. he did 
not backslide as some claim] it was not long be- 
fore he was convinced of the necessity of a 
further work of grace upon his heart. He now 
saw that it was his privilege to be cleansed from 
all sin/' 



THE EXPERIENCE OF BELIEVERS. 137 

Mr. Bramwell says : "I was for some time 
deeply ' convinced of my need of purity, and 
sought it carefully with, tears, and entreaties, 
and sacrifices, thinking nothing too much to give 
up, — nothing too much to do or suffer, — if I 
might but obtain this pearl of great price." 

Who can doubt but what there was depravity 
of heart remaining in Mr. B. ; which conversion 
had not wholly removed ? 

After describing the manner in which he 
sought heart-cleansing, viz.: " by faith alone, 
without the deeds of the law;" he says : " The 
Lord, for whom I waited, came suddenly to the 
temple of my heart, and I had an immediate 
evidence that this was the blessing I had for 
some time been seeking. My soul was all won- 
der, love, and praise. It is now about twenty- 
six years ago : I have walked in this blessed 
liberty ever since. Glory be to God." —Bram- 
welVs Life. 

Such a testimony as this should settle the 
«/ 

question, so far as experience can settle it, that 
heart purity is a work wrought, by the power 
of the Spirit, subsequent to conversion. 

Hester Ann Rogers. This pious lady holds 
high rank among the witnesses of Jesus for her 



138 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

spotless life and Christ-like devotion to the sal- 
vation of souls. Her experience clearly illus- 
trates all the points in this controversy. After 
a long and severe struggle, she was assured of 
her pardon and adoption. She thus describes 
the change : " In that moment my fetters were 
broken, my bands were loosed, and my soul set 
at liberty. The love of God was shed abroad in 
my heart, and I rejoiced with joy unspeakable. 
Now, if I had possessed ten thousand souls I 
could have ventured them all with my Jesus. 
I would have given them all to Him ! I was 
truly a new creature, and seemed to be in a new 
world. I could do nothing but love and praise 
my God, and could not refrain continually re- 
peating, Thou art my Father ! God, Thou 
art my God ! while tears of joy ran down my 
cheeks. " 

This was a clear conversion. She continued 
to praise the Lord, and rejoice in Him for some 
time. She performed every duty, bore every 
cross, and was constant in her devotions. But 
in the midst of labors more abundant, she says: 
" The Lord began to reveal in my heart that sin 
was not all destroyed ; for though I had constant 
victory over it, yet I felt the remains of anger, 



THE EXPERIENCE OF BELIEVERS. 139 

pride, self-will, and unbelief often rising, which, 
occasioned a degree of heaviness and sorrow. 
At first I was amazed to feel such things, and 
often tempted to think I had lost a measure of 
grace ;" [just what some accuse such persons of] 
" yet when I looked to the Lord, or w T henever I 
approached Him in secret, He shed His precious 
love abroad, and bore witness also with my Spirit 
that I was still His child. Yea, and at this time 
I received many remarkable answers to prayers 
— many proofs of His undoubted love and good- 
ness to my soul, and I ever felt I would rather 
die than offend Him." 

No one can question, with any reason, the 
presence of depravity here, and that, too, while 
the soul was conscious of communion with Jesus, 
being justified freely by His grace. 

In this state of mind, Mrs. Rogers made 
earnest supplication to God, with strong crying 
and tears, and ceased not her efforts until Jesus 
"spoke the second time, be dean! 1 In her own 
language — " I come empty to be filled ; deny me 
not. I have no plea but Thy mercy, the blood 
of Jesus, the promise, and my own great need. 
0, save me fully by an act of free grace. I now 
take Thee at Thy word ; I do by faith cast my- 



140 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

self on Thy promise. I venture my soul on Thy 
veracity ; Thou canst not deny !" At last she 
exclaimed, " Lord, I do believe ; this moment 
Thou dost save. Yea, Lord, my soul is delivered 
from her burden. I am emptied of all; I am 
at Thy feet, a helpless, worthless worm ; but I 
take hold of Thee as my fulness ! I am con- 
quered and subdued by love. Thy love sinks 
me into nothing ; it overflows my soul my 
Jesus, Thou art all in all ! In Thee I behold 
and feel all the fulness of the Godhead mine. I 
am now one with God ; the intercourse is open ; 
sin, inbred sin, no longer hinders the close Gom- 
munion, and God is all my own." 

Mrs. Eogers bore witness in life and in death 
that this was the work of heart- cleansing which 
she did not receive at the time of her conversion. 
We cannot see how such testimony can be re- 
sisted, except by denying all testimony based on 
experience. 

Bishop Whatcoat Of this man's consecration 
to the Episcopacy, Bishop Simpson remarks, that 
" holy hands were never laid on a holier head." 
Of his conversion, Bishop W. gives the following 
account : u I was reading the Scriptures, and 
when I came to these words, i The Spirit itself 



THE EXPERIENCE OF BELIEVERS. 141 

beareth witness with our spirit that we are the 
children of God/ as I fixed my eyes upon them, 
in a moment my darkness was removed, and the 
Spirit did bear witness with my spirit that I 
was a child of God. In the same instant I was 
filled with unspeakable peace and joy in believ- 
ing; all fear of death, judgment, and hell sud- 
denly vanished. Before this, I was kept awake 
by anguish and fear, so that I could not get an 
hour's sound sleep in a night. Now I wanted 
no sleep, being abundantly refreshed by con- 
templating the rich display of God's mercy in 
adopting so unworthy a creature as me to be an 
heir of the kingdom of heaven/' 

As clear as was this conversion, he soon found 
that sin, though subdued, was not destroyed. 
Though converted, he was not " cleansed from 
all unrighteousness." Of his subsequent ex- 
perience he says, " My faith and love grew 
stronger and stronger; [he did not back- 
slide, as some claim ; and yet,] I soon found, 
that though I was justified freely, yet I was not 
wholly sanctified. This brought me into a deep 
concern, and confirmed my resolution to admit 
of no peace or truce w T ith the evils which I still 
found in my heart. I was sensible that they 



142 ■ SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

both hindered me at present in my holy exercises, 
and that I could not enter into the joys of my 
Lord unless they were all rooted out." 

The freedom which he so ardently sought, to 
the unspeakable joy of his heart, he found. 
"After many sharp and painful conflicts, 
and many gracious visitations, also, on the 
28th of March, 1761, my soul was drawn out 
and engaged in a manner it never was before. 
Suddenly I was stripped of all but love. And 
in this happy state, rejoicing evermore, and in 
everything giving thanks, I continued for some 
years with little intermission or abatement, 
wanting nothing for soul or body more than I 
received from day to day." — Wedey's Mission- 
aries to America. 

No testimony could be more clear and satis- 
factory than this. It covers each point fully, 
and the only way to break its force is to deny 
all testimony, which Christian men will be slow 
to do. 

Prof. Thomas C. Upham. Mr. Upham was 
well and favorably known, as a minister of the 
Congregational Church. Of his conversion he 
says ; " Cod had given me great blessings, such 
as a new sense of forgiveness, increased love, a 



THE EXPERIENCE OF BELIEVERS. 143 

clear evidence of adoption and sonship, close and 
deeper communion with Himself.'' 

It appears from this statement, that when Mr. 
U. commenced seeking the blessing of entire 
sanctification, he was not in a backslidden state, 
but possessed a " clear evidence of adoption and 
sonship." But with this " close and deeper 
communion with " God, he found evils w T ithin, 
which this change, clear as it was, had not re- 
moved. Hence he says, " I do not know that I 
was ever more troubled. The remains of every 
form of internal opposition to God appeared to 
be centred in one point — selfishness." But he 
cried unto the strong for strength. His faith 
triumphed, and from the midst of this conflict 
he exclaims, "Thou hast given me the victory." 
" I was never able before that time to say, with 
sincerity and confidence, that I loved my 
heavenly Father with all my strength. But, 
aided by divine grace I have been enabled to 
use this language, which involves, as I under- 
stand it, the true idea of Christian perfection, or 
holiness, both then and ever since. There was no 
intellectual excitement, no very marked joy, when 
I reached this great rock of practical salvation. 
But I was distinctly conscious when I reached it." 



144 SCRIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

Could this keen, philosophical mind ; have 
been so much deceived as to have mistaken this 
grand experience for conversion, or restoration 
from a backslidden state? The insinuation 
would be repelled as an insult to ordinary in- 
telligence. 

James Brainard Taylor. Mr. Taylor was 
one of the brightest examples of holiness which 
has ever adorned the Presbyterian Church. He 
professed faith in Christ at the age of fifteen. 
His biographer says : " As soon as he felt the 
transforming power of truth, he manifested a de- 
cided disposition to active benevolence." His 
whole heart seemed bent on loving and serving 
Christ, and yet he was constantly hindered by 
the evils of his unsanctified nature. He says, 
" Notwithstanding my profession that I had 
crucified the world, the flesh and the devil, I 
have had keener sorrows for indwelling sin than 
I ever experienced before conversion. Oh, 
the distress which I have felt on account of 
pride, envy, love of the world, and other evil 
passions which have risen up and disturbed my 
peace, and separated between God and my soul." 

One is struck with the similarity of this ex- 
perience with that of Hester Ann. Rogers. At 



THE EXPERIENCE OF BELIEVERS. 145 

this time he says ; " I felt I needed something 
which I did not possess. There was a void 
within which must be filled, or I could not be 
happy. My earnest desire then was, as it had 
been ever since I professed religion six years 
before, that all the love of the world might be 
destroyed, all selfishness extirpated, pride ban- 
ished, unbelief removed, all idols disthroned, 
every thing hostile to holiness and opposed to 
the divine will crucified; that holiness to the 
Lord might be engraved on my heart, and ever 
more characterize my conversation. At this 
very juncture, (April 23d, P. M., 1822) I was 
most delightfully conscious of giving up all to 
God. I was enabled in my heart to say : Here 
Lord, take me, take my whole soul, and seal me 
Thine, — Thine now and Thine forever. Then 
there ensued such emotions as I never before ex- 
perienced ; all was calm and tranquil, silent and 
solemn, and a heaven of love pervaded my whole 
soul. I had a witness of God's4ove to me, and 
of mine to Him. Shortly after I was dissolved in 
tears of love and gratitude to our blessed Lord. 
The name of Jesus was precious to me. He came 
like a king and took full possession of my heart, 
and I was enabled to say, ' I am crucified with 
10 



146 SCKIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

Christ/ " Writing to a friend, lie says, " My soul 
has drank from the fulness of God. The Lord has 
given me power over the adversary, so that 
when he comes he finds nothing in me." "I 
have enjoyed, and do still feel a fulness , which 
the Lord has bestowed upon me. Yes, perfect 
love appears to be the ruling principle in my 
soul, so that I enjoy a little heaven to go to 
heaven in." "I have concluded, and do still 
believe, that my soul enjoys the blessing of full 
redemption." " My mind loves to dwell upon 
this delightful theme — holiness. It is a blessed 
doctrine. Ah ! why did I not come to possess 
it before? Why? because, like many other 
professors of religion, I looked for a death pur- 
gatory, not believing that the blood of Christ, 
and not purgatory, cleanseth from all sin. This 
is the present tense. It is efficacious now, and 
the Lord has proved to me a full, a complete 
Saviour." — Letter, June 21, 1822. 

We could multiply these witnesses, but their 
testimony would only confirm those already given. 
These must be taken as examples of a great 
multitude. 

With such testimonies ringing through the 
Church, what becomes of Dr. Crane's inquiry ? 



THE EXPERIENCE OF BELIEVERS. 147 

These testimonies meet fully every point, and 
demonstrate, so far as testimony can do it, the 
doctrine which he denies. The Church may, 
and doubtless will abandon theories on this sub- 
ject, but we trust she will never ignore such 
testimonies as these, 

"If the whole number of Christians were 
consulted, at or near the time of their conver- 
sion/' says Dr. L. Lee, "few, if any, would be 
found to believe themselves to have been wholly 
sanctified at the time of their conversion, or to 
have been freed from all depravity; yet they 
feel confident that their sins have been forgiven, 
and that they love God. Whatever may be 
their creed, whatever may be their philosophy 
of regeneration and sanctification, if they are 
real Christians, experience has but one language ; 
they feel, they are conscious that they love God 
and enjoy His favor, yet that they have not at- 
tained all that is implied in entire sanctification 
as taught in the Scriptures, and as it has been 
explained above. 

If the experience of those who have obtained 
this great blessing of entire sanctification were con- 
sulted, it would doubtless be found to accord with 
the explanation above given." — Theology , p. 215. 



148 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

It has been objected, 

1. That nothing can be proved by experience. 
We admit that experience is not sufficient to 
prove a doctrine unsupported by Scripture. 
But we insist, with Mr. Wesley, that " experience 
is sufficient to confirm a doctrine which is 
grounded on Scripture." We have shown that 
the doctrine has a Scriptural foundation, and the 
argument from experience confirms the doctrine. 

It may be true that persons are liable to be 
misled by their emotions. The men of '43 
claimed to have a witness that the world would 
end on a given day of that year. But shall 
we, on that account, give up the doctrine of the 
witness of the Spirit ? Are we prepared to deny 
the witness of the Spirit because some have been 
mistaken in their experience ? Is this the logic ? 
— The Millerites professed to have the witness 
of the Spirit that the world would end in 1843, 
and were mistaken, therefore, no man can know 
that his sins are forgiven, or his heart cleansed 
from all unrighteousness. If this is the con- 
clusion, let us no longer sing 

"The Spirit answers to the blood, 
And tells me I am born of God." 

And let us no longer repeat the Scripture, " We 



THE EXPERIENCE OF BELIEVERS. 149 

have — received the Spirit which is of God, that 
we may know the things that are freely given us 
of God."— 1 Cor. ii. 12. 

There is a marked difference between the wit- 
ness of the Spirit to an abstract dogma 7 and its 
witness to a work wrought in the soul by the 
power of that Spirit, or the Spirit witnessing to 
its own work. God gives us no warrant for the 
former, but abundant assurance for the latter. 

Suppose I should affirm that I had the witness 
of the Spirit that the identity of the resurrection 
body will consist of the same kind of elementary 
matter, combined in the same proportions, and 
having the same form and structure; and it 
should be found that its identity consisted in a 
sameness of particles, and I am mistaken ; would 
my mistake be a justifiable pretext for denying 
the fact that the Spirit may witness with my 
spirit that I am a child of God ? 

Those who claimed to have the witness of the 
Spirit that the world would end on a given year 
or day, claimed such witness to an occurrence, 
with regard to which God had declared they 
should not know. It had reference to an abstract 
dogma, which had no connection with conscious- 
ness ; hence the absurdity of supposing that a 



150 SCKIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

man could be conscious of it. But God has de- 
clared that we may be conscious of our personal 
salvation. It is an inward change, wrought by 
the Holy Spirit, and as such, may be known. 
So we teach and so we believe. 

The time was when the witness of the Spirit 
to our adoption was stoutly denied. It was 
claimed that we could not know our sins forgiven 
in this life, although the Bible seemed to teach 
another sentiment. But tens of thousands sought 
the witness of their adoption, and found it; 
which fact has shed so much light on the teach- 
ings of the Bible, that very few are found among 
evangelical Christians who have any doubt on 
the subject. Ought not our experience in entire 
sanctification to have as much weight ? Is not 
a denial of the latter a virtual denial of the 
former ? No stronger evidence can be produced 
from the Bible or experience for the one than for 
the other. 

2. It is objected to this doctrine, that those 
professing entire sanctification are only reclaimed 
from a backslidden state. 

The man who asserts, for the sake of sustain- 
ing a pet dogma, that Fletcher, Carvosso, Bram- 
well, Hester Ann Rogers, Whatcoat, Prof. Up- 



THE EXPERIENCE OF BELIEVERS. 151 

ham, and others, were in a backslidden state at 
the time they sought and professed to find the 
blessing of entire sanctification, should cover his 
face for very shame. 

The reader must have seen how fully this ob- 
jection has been refuted in the testimonies of 
Bramwell, who assured us that he was " obedient 
to the teachings of the Spirit ;" and Mrs. Rogers, 
who declares that she " had constant victory over 
sin;" and Bishop Whatcoat, who tells us that 
his " faith and love grew stronger and stronger." 

While it may be, and doubtless is true, that 
many, professing entire sanctification, are simply 
reclaimed, and hence the short-lived duration of 
the work, it is still true that this cannot be said 
of thousands whose whole lives refute the charge. 
Whatever may be said of many who have pro- 
fessed this grace, the witnesses whom we have 
introduced were not in a backslidden state when 
they commenced seeking the fulness of the Spirit. 

" Others have thought," says Rev. Mr. Board- 
man, " to solve the problem by calling the second 
experience simply a return from backsliding. 
But in each of the cases given we have the testi- 
mony of the witnesses themselves that it was 
more than this — a deeper work of grace, a fuller 



152 SCBJPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

apprehension of Christ, a more complete and 
abiding union with Him than at first. The wit- 
nesses themselves being judges in their own case, 
this solution is not the true one. We must go 
deeper for it. Thousands in every age since the 
primitive, have backslidden and returned again 
without any such great and permanent advance- 
ment in the divine life, as that set forth in the 
examples before us." " There is vastly more in 
such an experience, than return from backsliding! 
Then, too, above and beyond all this, it is never 
the returning backslider who comes into the ful- 
ness of this experience. Indeed, if backsliding 
and returning would really bring men into this 
gospel fulness, pity but the whole church would 
backslide and return. It would be a grand thing 
for the cause of Christ, and for their own com- 
fort and joy. The backslider returns only to the 
point attained when he turned back at most, 
and hard struggling for that ! But the work in 
question is a higher height, and a deeper depth, 
in the comprehension both of the love of Christ 
which passeth knowledge, and of the way of 
salvation by faith." — The Higher Christian Life. 



CHAPTEK IX. 

HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVERSION, 
SCRIPTURAL. 

"T^vO the Scriptures teach that believers are 
-*-^ wholly sanctified at, or subsequent to con- 
version? Is the soul entirely delivered from 
depravity at the moment of its justification, or 
is its entire cleansing a subsequent work ? We 
admit that if the Scriptures furnish no evidence 
of such a change, a belief in the doctrine is not 
obligatory upon any. But if there be evidence 
from the Scriptures of such an experience, it 
should be accepted. 

It must be remembered that the Bible, in pre- 
scribing rules for all, adapts its teachings to the 
great variety in human nature, resulting from 
education and natural temperament, through 
which, experience works out its richest gems. 

No two experiences are exactly alike. No 
two persons reach the same point, by the same 
process. One encounters a variety of difficulties 
to which another is a comparative stranger. 

153 



154 SCRIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

One is endowed with a measure of the Spirit, 
and joys in God to a degree which well-nigh 
staggers the faith of another. One enters into 
the land of rest, rapturously exclaiming, 

*' O, for a thousand tongues to sing 
My great Bedeemer's praise I " 

while another reaches the same point with feel- 
ings best expressed by 

Cl A speechless awe that dares not move, 
And all the silent heaven of love." 

This variety in Christian experience, on the 
subject of heart purity, as well as conversion, is 
marked. One says, " I felt it, not only outwardly, 
but inwardly. It seemed to press upon my 
whole being, and to diffuse all through and 
through it, a holy, sin-consuming energy. For a 
few minutes, the deep of God's love swallowed me 
up ; all its waves and its billows rolled over me." 
Another says, " 'Twas no ecstatic flight, no 
height of rapture ; but, 0, the depth ! the fathom- 
less depth ! The ocean of love." Another says, 
" My heart melted and flowed out like water." 
Another says, " For a week the mortal powers 
could scarcely sustain the weight of love." 
Another says, " I now looked around for my 



SCRIPTUEAL. 155 

sins, — they had long been my companions — but 
they were nowhere to be found. Jesus had 
borne them all away." Another says, "Wave 
after wave rolled over me, until I could only cry 
out, Glory ! glory ! It seemed like light, and 
its essence love." Another says, " There was 
no intellectual excitement, no very marked joy, 
when I reached this great rock of practical sal- 
vation. But I was distinctly conscious when I 
reached it." Another says, "Here were won- 
ders ! This was like a God ! But why attempt 
to describe it with words ? The brightness of His 
glory has oft-times been so great as almost to ex- 
tinguish the lamp of this mortal life." Another 
says, " I now believed for the first time that my 
soul had entered the Canaan of perfect love." 

These testimonies are selected from the most 
intelligent believers in the Methodist, Baptist, 
Congregational, Presbyterian and Episcopal 
Churches. They are samples of what might be 
extended almost indefinitely both in number and 
variety. One has raptures which no tongue 
can express ; another, love, in its fathomless 
depths and heavenly sweetness. One shouts 
glory ; another whispers peace. One has visions 
and revelations, another sweetly trusts the word. 



156 SCEIPTUHAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

This variety in Christian experience is gen- 
erally conceded to result mainly from natural 
temperament. It is not the province of Chris- 
tianity to annihilate our natural temperaments, 
but to give direction and tone to them. It modi- 
fies, but never destroys them. Mr. A. is san- 
guine, — warm, ardent, confident. Mr. B. is 
phlegmatic, — cold, dull, sluggish, heavy. One is 
quickly and powerfully stirred and excited, 
while another is seldom if ever excited or pro- 
foundly moved. Mr. C. is confident, trustful — 
can believe on slight evidence ; while Mr. D. is 
distrustful, unbelieving, and can scarcely believe 
after his judgment is convinced. Mr. B. is hope- 
ful, while Mr. F. is desponding. They were 
always thus, and always will be. Grace has not 
changed them in this respect. 

From this variety in natural temperament, 
comes the great variety in Christian experi- 
ence. 

Now for a book, claiming to treat of matters 
of experience, to be perfectly adapted to all this 
temperamental or constitutional variety, so clearly 
developed in Christian experience, and not con- 
flict with any who may be seeking the heavenly 
way, it must, in the very nature of things, be 



SCRIPTURAL. 157 

somewhat general on those points which enter 
so largely into the experience of all. It can do 
little more than present the main facts without 
attempting to explain them in all their minute- 
ness. It fixes the outline, but leaves the filling 
up to individual experience. It maps out the 
beginning and end of the voyage, with all the 
prominent dangers of the passage ; but it does 
not attempt to describe every head wind and 
counter current to be met with. It tells us 
what winds will sweep us into the harbor, but 
it does not attempt to describe the force of the 
gale which wafts us into port. 

If we understand the Scriptures, they tell 
us that we may be "forgiven," and, then 
"cleansed from all unrighteousness. " (1 John 
i. 9.) We may be the " sons of God" and then 
"purified even as He is pure." (1 John iii. 2-3.) 
We may be " babes in Christ/' and yet so "car- 
nal " as to need " cleansing from all filthiness of 
flesh and spirit." (2 Cor. vii. 1.) We may know 
" the principles of the doctrine of Christ," em- 
bracing repentance and faith, — the prerequisite 
and condition of pardon — and then "go on un- 
to" not towards, " perfection." (Heb. vi. 1-2.) 

Here are the facts. They are simple and can 



158 SCKIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

be understood by all. They leave a wide margin 
for individual experience to have its full scope. 

While the Bible clearly recognizes a distinc- 
tion between conversion and entire sanctification, 
as a matter of experience, it does not pretend to 
describe all the nice points of difference which 
exist. These are left to individual experience, 
by which they are more or less effected, proving 
true that word, " If any man will do His will 
[or is willing to do His will, — Alford^\ he shall 
know of the doctrine.' ' 

The following Scriptural illustrations of this 
doctrine must convince the candid reader, that it 
is not without Scriptural authority. 

Before and after Pentecost. 

A careful examination of the spiritual state 
of the disciples before the Pentecost, must con- 
vince the unprejudiced reader that, whatever 
else they may have possessed, they were not 
" purified from all filthiness of flesh and spirit." 
The baptism of the Holy Ghost wrought wonder- 
ful changes in them. That they were Christians, 
notwithstanding their imperfections, is evident 
from several considerations. 

1. They had been chosen out of the world. 



SCRIPTURAL. 159 

Christ announced the fact, that they were not 
of the world, even as He was not of the world. 
It was because of this choice, already consum- 
mated, that the world hated them. 

2. They had become preachers of the word. 
" They went out and preached that men should 

repent." " When I sent you out," inquires the 
Master, " without purse or scrip, lacked ye any 
thing ? And they said nothing." " Go thou 
and preach the Kingdom of God/' was the com- 
mission to which they responded. 

Does any one suppose that Christ would have 
chosen, and sent out to preach, men w T ho had 
not been converted? They could not have 
preached " repentance " properly had they not 
repented. 

3. They had received a measure of the Spirit. 
Jesus " breathed on them, and said unto them, 

Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost." The Holy Ghost 
had not yet been given in His fulness. They 
had not been filled with the Holy Ghost, but He 
had come to them, in a measure, from the breath 
of Jesus. 

4. They had been cleansed, at least, in part. 
" Now," says Jesus, " ye are clean, through 

the word which I have spoken unto you." There 



160 SCRIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

are many things in their lives which go to show 
that this cleansing, though real, was not complete. 

5. They had become members of the family of 
God. 

When great power attended their word, and 
demons departed at their bidding, and they re- 
ported their wonderful success to the Master, 
He said: "Bejoice not that the devils are sub- 
ject to you through my name, but rejoice that 
your names are written in heaven/' " That 
your names are written ;" indicating that the 
work was done. They were already registered 
in the family record on high. 

These facts, with many others which might 
be mentioned, must convince all candid minds 
that the disciples were the children of God, the 
friends of Jesus, the commissioned heralds of the 
gospel of our salvation, with the Spirit in their 
hearts, and the love of Jesus cheering them in 
their work. And yet, with all these facts be- 
fore them, some will have it that the disciples 
were not converted before the Pentecost. But 
this idea does not prevail, we are glad to say, to 
any considerable extent. There are also the 
clearest proofs that whilst the disciples were 
Christians, they were not fully sanctified before 



SCRIPTURAL. 161 

the Pentecost. As conclusive evidence of this, 
we note several facts in their history. 

1. Christ chides them for their unbelief. 

To Peter He said, " Wherefore didst thou 
doubt ?" (Matt. xiv. 31.) Between the re- 
. surrection and the Pentecost, doubt was added 
to doubt. Thomas said, " I will not believe, 
unless," etc. Others had quite given up, ex- 
claiming, " We trusted that it had been He who 
should have redeemed Israel." Christ says, " 
slow of heart to believe," etc. He ".upbraided 
them because of their unbelief," and even "hard- 
ness of heart." 

Such manifest unbelief as this cannot be con- 
sonant with purity of heart. Unbelief is sin, 
and entire sanctification, if it does anything, it 
expels this fiend from the heart. Nothing of 
this was witnessed after the Pentecost. The 
fires of that day consumed the last vestige of 
doubt. 

2. Christ reproves them for their worldly ', 
secular spirit. 

Up to the Pentecost they were, to some extent, 

place-seekers. " Who should be greatest ; " 

who should " sit on the right hand " and who 

" on the left," were questions which more than 

11 



162 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

once called forth the sharpest reproof from the 
Master. 

3. He reprimands them for their spirit of 
retaliation. 

Upon the Samaritans they would call down 
the consuming fire, giving evidence that they 
knew not what spirit possessed them. One of 
them would smite with the sword, to the cutting 
off the right ear of a servant of the high-priest, 
only to receive a rebuke from Him whose King- 
dom is not of this world, and does not need to 
be established by carnal weapons. 

4. Christ prays for their sanctification, and 
for their oneness with him and His Father. 

That prayer was answered on the day of Pen- 
tecost, when they were il all filled with the Holy 
Ghost." 

That the Pentecost secured to them purity of 
heart, there is the clearest evidence. 

At the Council in Jerusalem, (Acts xv. 8, 9) 
Peter, in giving an account of his visit to Cor- 
nelius, and the work of God upon the hearts of 
the company assembled, says ; " And God, which 
knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving 
them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us ; 
And put no difference between us and them, 



SCEIPTUEAL. 163 

purifying their hearts by faith." Two facts are 
here stated. 

1. "Whatever was imparted to the disciples at 
Pentecost, was imparted to Cornelius. u Giving 
them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us." 
This must refer to Pentecost. The Holy Ghost 
fell on both companies alike — not in outward 
symbolism, but in essential power and effect. 

2. The work wrought, was the " purifying 
their hearts by faith." a And put no difference 
between us and them, purifying their hearts by 
faith/' If Cornelius' heart was " purified by 
faith," then the Apostles received the same 
blessing at Pentecost, for God put no difference 
between them. This fixes the character of the 
work at Pentecost — the purification of the heart 
by faith. 

We are aware of an objection to this reason- 
ing. It is said that our argument proves 
too much ; it proves either that Cornelius was a 
Christian before Peter visited him, or that purity 
of heart takes place at conversion. 

There are many, to us, unanswerable argu- 
ments in favor of the idea, that Cornelius 
was a servant of God, a believer, before Peter 
visited him. Take the following facts. 



164 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

1. Cornelius was a devout man. (Acts x. 2.) 
The meaning of the word eiHreftyz, is pious, rev- 
erent, devout, religious. — Robinson. The same 
word occurs in 2 Peter ii. 9, " The Lord knoweth 
how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and 
to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment 
to be punished.' ' This term fixes the character 
of Cornelius. He must have been a justified man. 

2. He was one that feared God. 

The wicked have " no fear of God before their 
eyes." To fear God is to depart from evil. The 
members of the early Church " walked in the 
fear of the Lord/ 7 and following this was the 
" comfort of the Holy Ghost." (Acts ix. 31.) 
Paul exhorts the Hebrews, " Let us have grace, 
whereby we may serve God acceptably with 
reverence and godly fear" (Heb. xii. 28.) 
Such was the spirit of Cornelius. 

3. He gave much alms to the people. 

Works are not recognized in the Scriptures 
as good and acceptable to God, which do not 
spring from faith. That these works were the 
fruit of faith seems clear from the fact that 

4. He prayed to God always. 

" He that cometh to God,' 7 , in the manner here 
described, " must believe that He is, and that 



SCRIPTURAL. 165 

He is a rewarder of such as diligently seek 
Him." 

5. The prayers and alms of this good man, 
" came up for a memorial before God J 1 

Did ever the prayers of an unbeliever thus 
come up before God ? Cornelius was accepted, 
not because of his prayers and alms, but because 
he believed God. He was a believer in the same 
sense that Zacharias and Elizabeth, Simeon and 
Anna were believers. 

6. God assured Cornelius that his prayer was 
heard. 

He had, no doubt, been praying about the 
Messiah, and his prayer being answered, he 
had become a believer. He was familiar with 
the Jews and their religion, and had without 
doubt, heard of Jesus. In fact, Peter addresses 
him and his company as if they were perfectly 
familiar with John's baptism, and with Jesus of 
Nazareth. 

7. Cornelius is called u a just man. 11 

The same is said of Abel, Noah, Abraham, Lot, 
Simeon, Joseph, John the Baptist, and Joseph 
of Arimathea. Shall all these be regarded as 
saints, and Cornelius alone be cast out ? 

We are glad to be sustained in these views by 



186 SCRIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

so able and orthodox a writer as Rev. Israel 
Chamberlayne, D,D. In his work entitled — 
" Saving Faith, 11 — published by the Methodist 
Book Concern, and commended by Bishops Mor- 
ris and Peck, Dr. F. G. Hibbard, and others, 
he says : 

"The striking case of Cornelius stands in 
Acts x. ; in which we have, the character of the 
man, and God's gracious acceptance of him." 

" Inwardly and towards God, his was a life of 
earnest piety ; 'he feared God/ and— with fast- 
ing — { prayed to God always/ Outwardly 
and towards men, it was marked by a sacred 
regard for the rights of person, property, and 
character ; for, fearing God, he wrought ' right- 
eousness.' And it was a life of diffusive benevo- 
lence : he ' gave much alms to the people/ ' 

God's gracious acceptance of him is variously 
attested : 

By the angel : " Thy prayers and thine alms 
are come up for a memorial before God." 

By vision and voice from heaven : " What 
God hath cleansed," etc. 

By Peter — that voice still in his ears — when 
he " opened his mouth " to preach the gospel, by 
saying, " Of a truth I perceive " by God's signal 



SCRIPTURAL. 167 

acceptance of this upright Gentile — "that in 
every nation " — Gentile, Jewish, or Christian — 
" he that " — like him — " feareth God and work- 
eth righteousness, is " — in like manner — " ac- 
cepted of Him." 

By God Himself ; for u while Peter was yet 
speaking these words," God added His own in- 
dubitable attestation to their truth ; " the Holy 
Ghost fell " — upon Cornelius and the whole as- 
sembly. 

" While such is the effect of the above testi- 
mony on the issue before us, it also establishes 
this : — That it is a law of the government of 
the blessed God — a law of universal application 
— now to accept, for Christ's sake, all who now 
heartily believe and sincerely obey, according to 
the light they have, as in the case of Cornelius ; 
the time and manner of making them acquainted 
with His acceptance of them being i left in His 
own power.' " 

Speaking of the Church of the living God, he 
says : " Its every real member, whether a God- 
fearing Gentile, like Cornelius, a devout Jew, 
like John the Baptist, or a hesitating Christian, 
like Thomas of the Twelve — each is His, and 
therefore a livivx) member." (pp. 33, 34, 35, 39.) 



168 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

Such, a believer as Cornelius, was in the best 
possible state to receive purity of heart. It 
must be admitted that the objection, that Cor- 
nelius was not a believer, and consequently was 
not justified before Cod, is without reason. . 

Our argument is, that the disciples at Pente- 
cost, as well as Cornelius at Cesarea, were made 
partakers of heart purity. 

Before Pentecost they had great fear, which 
perfect love should have cast out, had they pos- 
sessed it ; but after the Pentecost they had no 
fear. Ruler and rabble, mob and Satan had no 
power to stay the faith of the crucified. 

The outward manifestation — the miraculous 
gift of tongues — was but the symbol of a mightier 
work within. They did not then shout, says 
Mr. Fletcher, " Then hath God given unto the 
Gentiles power to speak Arabic," but " then hath 
God granted the gift of the Holy Ghost, accord- 
ing to the fulness of the Christian dispensation/' 

Mr. Pletcher contends that an uncommon 
degree of sanctifying grace was then imparted ; 
that the gift of tongues was merely an ap- 
pendage, and by no means an essential part of 
the baptism. He says, " That this dispensation 
of the Holy Ghost, this coming of Christ's spirit- 



SCRIPTURAL. 169 

ual kingdom with power, is attended with an 
uncommon degree of sanctifying grace, is ac- 
knowledged by all ; and that the gift of tongues, 
etc., which at first, on some occasions, and in 
some persons, accompanied the baptism of the 
Spirit, for a sign to bigoted Jews, or to stupid 
heathens ; — that such a gift, I say, was a tem- 
porary appendage, and by no means an essential 
part of Christ's spiritual baptism, is evident from 
the merely spiritual effects which the receiving 
of the Holy Ghost had upon the penitent Jews, 
who, being l born of water and the Spirit/ 
pressed after the apostles into the kingdom on 
the day of Pentecost. 

" It is very remarkable, that although three 
thousand converts ' received the gift of the Holy 
Ghost ' on the memorable day in which Christ 
opened the dispensation of His Spirit, no men- 
tion is made of so much as one of them working 
a single miracle, or speaking with one new 
tongue. But the greatest and most beneficial 
of miracles was wrought upon them all ; for ' all 
that believed/ says St. Luke, l were together ; 
continuing daily with one accord in the temple, 
breaking bread from house to house, eating their 
meat with gladness and singleness of heart, 



170 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

praising God, and having favor with all the 
people/ by their humble, affectionate, angelical 
behaviour. Or, as the same historian expresses 
it, (Acts iv. 32,) ' The multitude of them that 
believed ' — spoke Greek and Latin ? No ; but — 
( were of one heart and of one soul ; neither said 
any of them that aught of the things which he 
possessed was his own, but they had all things, 
common ;' having been made perfect in one, 
agreeably to our Lord's deep prayer, recorded 
by St. John : ' Neither pray I for these [my dis- 
ciples] alone, but for them also who shall believe 
on me through their word, that they all may be 
one ; I in them, [by my Spirit,] and thou in me, 
that they may be made perfect in one/ "— Works, 
vol. i. pp. 593, 594. 

Eev. Richard Watson regarded the Pentecostal 
baptism, not a miraculous gift of tongues merely, 
but the purification of the heart, and the filling 
it with the Holy Ghost. Speaking of the mani- 
festations of God to man, he says ; " The first 
grand administration of Him was after Christ 
ascended, and went within the veil, and then 
poured out from heaven that glorious and visible 
influence which was made manifest on the day 
of Pentecost. But then we should greatly nar- 



SCRIPTURAL. 171 

row our view of the subject, if we confined the 
effects of these operations of the Holy Spirit 
merely to His miraculous gifts. That which 
the apostles received in addition was infinitely 
more valuable than these gifts, however import- 
ant they were to the success of their public 
ministry. The visible tongues of fire were only 
emblems of what had passed within. It was, 
indeed, a baptism of fire to them. "What new 
creatures did they now become ! They were 
raised from earthliness to spirituality. Their 
gross conceptions of the kingdom of Christ were 
purged away. The bright flame irradiated their 
dim eyes to perceive the true and full meaning 
of the sacred Scriptures, kindled the ardor of 
an unquenchable love to Christ, and transformed 
them into bright reflections of His own purity. 
They came together the sincere, but timid and 
partially enlightened followers of Christ; and 
they departed full of light, and power, and love. 
. . . Christ now baptizes with the Holy Ghost 
and with fire. There is to be a constant, though 
secret Pentecost, as to every Christian. The 
sacred baptisms are inexhaustible to all who fix 
their faith and hope in the office and power of 
Christ to administer them, and the gracious con- 



172 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

descensions and readiness of the Spirit to be thus 
administered. He that thus comes to God shall 
receive this mighty influence ; and it is our fault 
that we do not live in a richer experience of it. 

"Yes, brethren, the celestial gift is yours. 
You are called to receive the heavenly element 
which spreads an intensity of spiritual life 
through the understanding and conscience; 
kindles and feeds the secret fire of devotion; 
converts, like the warmth of summer, the dark 
and sterile soul into life, and verdure, and fruit- 
fulness; animates every affection; invigorates 
for every service ; gives vital pulses to the cou- 
rage, and strengthens in all conflicts ; nor ter- 
minates its sacred operations till it has purged 
from the heart of man all its stains of sin y all 
its debasing alloy of earthliness f and rendered it 
to God, meet for high fellowship and intercourse 
with Sim for ever and ever." — Sermons , vol. ii. 
pp. 363, 364. 

Eev. W. Arthur says, "The apostles had 
doubtless received the Spirit in some measure 
before the day of Pentecost ; for our Lord had 
breathed upon them immediately after His res- 
urrection, and said, * Receive ye the Holy Ghost/ 
Yet in the time which intervened between that 






SCRIPTUBAL. 173 

and Pentecost, whatever might have been the 
advancement of their spiritual condition beyond 
what it was before, it rested far behind that 
which immediately followed upon the baptism 
of fire. It was only then that they were 'filled 
with the Holy Ghost.' "We find, however, that 
even the expression, ( be filled/ is applied broadly 
to ordinary believers ; and that, too, not merely 
as describing the actual enjoyment of some in- 
dividuals, but a precept applicable to all : i Be 
not drunken with wine, wherein is excess, but 
he filled with the Spirit 1 Whatever is meant by 
being Mled with the Holy Ghost is, by these 
plain words, laid upon us as our duty." — Tongue 
of Fire, p. 46. 



CHAPTER X. 

HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVEKSION, 
SCEIPTUEAL. 

The Corinthian Church. 

r I iHE Apostolic counsel to this Church, settles 
-T the question involved in this controversy, if 
it can be settled by the Word of God. 

A recent writer says of this Church : " Paul 
declares that he wrote to the Church at Corinth 
with anguish of heart and many tears, to rebuke 
them for their many open sins against God. He 
calls them carnal, and tells them the reason why. 
There were envy, strife, and divisions among 
them. Having fallen into open sin, their spirit- 
ual state was far below the privileges of those 
who are born of God." — {Birthright, etc., p. 74.) 

The natural inference from this statement is, 
that the Corinthian Church were not born again, 
and consequently were not entitled to be known 
or recognized as Christians at all. Let us ex- 
amine, candidly, the apostle's treatment of 
174 



THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH. 175 

this Church, and see if he regarded them in 
the same light. 

1. These epistles were addressed to the whole 
Church. The apostle addresses himself " unto 
the Church of God which is at Corinth ;" not to 
a class of persons " far below those who are 
born of God." " To them that are sanctified in 
Christ Jesus;" i. e. separated to God, but not 
" wholly sanctified." 

2. Addressing the whole body of believers, he 
says ; " Now I beseech you, brethren, by the 
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak 
the same thing, that there be no divisions among 
you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in 
the same mind and in the same judgment." 
Here " the Church of God,"— "all" of them, 
are addressed as " brethren," which would hardly 
be suitable to a class of persons who were not 
even "born of God;" and to exhort such per- 
sons to " be perfectly joined together in the same 
mind," would not be in keeping with the apostle's 
purpose, if that purpose was to call them back 
from entire apostacy, which must have been 
their state, if they were not "born of God." 

There is not the most distant intimation that 
the apostle was addressing a class of church 



176 SCKIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

members, so far backslidden, as to have lost their 
justification. It is only necessary to note the 
words of commendation bestowed upon this 
Church by the apostle, to make this clear. 

1. He says : " I thank my God always on your 
behalf, for the grace of God which is given you 
by Jesus Christ." These are not words to be 
addressed to persons who are "far below the 
privileges of those who are born of God." He 
does not address them as persons who had been 
converted and had backslidden, but thanks God 
" for the grace of God which is given " them. 

2. He farther says ; " In every thing ye are 
enriched in Him ! " and "the testimony of Christ 
was confirmed in you;" and "ye are in Christ." 
Can these things be affirmed of backsliders ; or 
those who are not " born of God ?" He further 
declares that they had "received the Spirit 
which is of God." Wherever this Spirit is re- 
ceived, it "witnesseth with our spirit that we 
are the children of God." A Church of which 
these things could be affirmed must be a true 
Church. 

3. Another significant fact here stated is, 
that the members of this " Church of God " 
were "babes in Christ." To be "in Christ," 



THE COKINTHIAN CHUECH. 177 

is to be "a new creature." To be a "babe in 
Christ " is to be a " child of God ;" " and if chil- 
dren ; then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint heirs 
with Jesus Christ." Can such persons be other 
than Christians ? 

Now, what were the " open sins " of this 
Church which the apostle condemned ? Were 
they evils uncommon among ordinary church 
members of that day, or even of these times ? 

It is alleged that some of those to whom 
Paul wrote were guilty of the worse type of sin 
— that of a man having his father's wife. (1 Cor. 
v. 1.) But whoever reads this epistle carefully, 
will observe, that the apostle does not address 
these wicked persons ; but he exhorts the 
" Church of God," as " dearly beloved breth- 
ren," to put away from them these persons, lest 
they be found guilty of keeping company with 
such offenders, and become contaminated by 
their influence. These counsels and exhorta- 
tions were not addressed to this class of sinners, 
but to the Church, setting forth her duty in re- 
gard to such ; making a marked distinction be- 
tween the " dearly beloved brethren " addressed, 
and the wicked persons who were to be put 
away. 

12 



178 SCRIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 



■\ 



But what were the faults of this Church ? 
Much the same as what we find in nearly every 
Church in the land. 

1. They had not conquered their selfishness. 
They entertained and freely expressed their likes 
and dislikes of their ministers. Such free ex- 
pressions were, at times, evidently unbecoming : 
and to a pure mind gave evidence of an un- 
sanctified heart. But it was only what is re- 
peated in these times in nearly all our Churches. 
One saith, " I am of Paul/' another, " I am of 
Apollos," and another, "I am of Cephas." 
They seemed quite unwilling to cordially receive 
their ministers, and at times, not a little " strife" 
arose on account of it. 

But suppose that every Church or Church 
member, who should freely express their likes 
and dislikes, as is here indicated, should be set 
down as backslidden, and far below those who 
are born of God ; would not the imputation be 
regarded as harsh and uncharitable ? And yet 
this is one of the chief sins of this Church. The 
apostle does charge that such conduct gives evi- 
dence of depravity, or carnality ; but he does not 
intimate that they were not the children of 
God, but affirms, on the contrary, that they were 



THE CORINTHIAN CHUECH. 179 

" babes in Christ." In this respect they did 
much the same as men of the world do when 
they wish to carry their point. 

Who has not seen " strife," — sometimes even 
"envy," not to say "divisions," in Churches, 
growing out of the " calling " and " dismission " 
of ministers ? But who ever thought of turning 
all these Churches over to Satan, as though they 
had "'blasphemed/' or representing them as " far 
below those who are born of God ?" 

2. This Church gave evidence of being un- 
sanctified, in that its members were "still 
carnal." 

Just what is meant by " carnal," in this con- 
nection, may not be so clear. But that it does 
not refer to that carnality which characterizes 
the unconverted sinner, in its broadest and most 
unrestricted sense, is very clear. The apostle 
represents that " babes in Christ " and " carnal," 
are the same. Not that it is the same thing, 
but that "carnality" belongs to a "babe in 
Christ." If they are no farther advanced than 
childhood, they are still, to a certain extent, 
" carnal ;" depravity is not all removed. 

The apostle says ; " And I brethren could not 
speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto 



180 SCKIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

carnal, as unto babes in Christ." They were, 
like children, irritable, fretful, petulant — marked 
evidences of an unsanetified nature. This the 
apostle calls " carnal ;" and so far as it existed, 
it gave evidence that the old man had not been 
6t cast out and spoiled of his goods." 

The evils which are found in this Corinthian 
Church, are just such as we find in every un- 
sanctified Church the world over. For all such 
carnality, the apostle proposes this all potent 
remQdy : " Having therefore these promises, 
dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all 
filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness 
in the fear of God." (2 Cor. vii. 1.) 

This text proves, beyond all successful con- 
troversy, that there may be " babes in Christ," 
and " dearly beloved brethren/' who are not 
cleansed from all moral defilement — that they 
are not perfectly holy, but may be made pure. 

The members of this Church, though acknow- 
ledged to be Christians, were not cleansed ; they 
were to some extent " carnal and walked as men." 
And yet they were earnestly pressed to seek the 
cleansing provided for them, and thus " perfect 
holiness in the fear of God." 

The writer last named seeks to break the force 



THE CORINTHIAN CHUKCH. 181 

of this text by arguments in our judgment, the 
most fallacious. He insists that the apostle is not 
referring to the actual condition of the Corinth- 
ians, when he urges them to " cleanse themselves/' 
etc., for then would " Paul include himself in this 
very exhortation;" " let us cleanse ourselves, etc/' 
H Does Paul the aged, now in the twenty- sixth 
year of his ministry, and only six years before 
his martyrdom, confess that he himself is not 
yet cleansed from the things of which he warns 
others V {Birthright, p. 77.) 

No one knows better than this writer, that it is 
not only a common mode of address among teachers 
to include themselves with their hearers, but 
that it is very common in the epistles. James 
says ; ""'In many things we offend all." Did he 
mean to say this of himself, or of those whom 
he addressed ? 

" We put bits in the horses' mouths, that they 
may obey us/' Does James mean to say that 
he was a horse-breaker ? or did he speak of or to 
those who practised these things? 

" So is the tongue among our members/' Does 
he mean to have it understood that his tongue 
is " set on fire of hell ? " or did he mean to say 
that it was true of unregenerate men ? 



182 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

"Therewith curse we men." "Was it true 
that James did this cursing, or was it the practice 
of sinners ? No man of common sense, without 
a theory to sustain, could imagine that the apostle 
intended to include himself in these refer- 
ences. 

The same writer says, " Paul's babes in Christ 
must not be confounded with John's little chil- 
dren. John's epithet is one of endearment, Paul's 
is a term of reproach." 

That " babes in Christ " is a term of reproach," 
we do not believe. The term means, "an infant, 
child, babe" (Hobinson.) In 1 Cor. xiii. 11, the 
word occurs, " when I was a child, I spake as a 
child, I understood as a child, I thought as a 
child ; but when I became a man, I put away 
childish things." Was it -any " reproach " to be 
a child, before he became a man ? It is true that 
they were children when they should have been 
maturing into manhood ; but the term is not one 
of reproach of necessity, for all must be babes 
before they are men. And here is seen the need 
of their entire sanctification. 

The view which we have taken of the charac- 
ter of this Church is in exact accord with Mr. 
Wesley. He says : 



THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH. 183 

"When St. Paul writes to the believers at 
Corinth, to those who were sanctified in Christ 
Jesus, he says, l I, brethren, could not speak 
unto you, as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, 
as unto babes in Christ. Ye are yet carnal : 
for whereas there is among you envying and 
strife, are ye not carnal ? f Now here the apostle 
speaks unto those who were unquestionably be- 
lievers, — whom in the same breath he styles 
his brethren in Christ, — as being still in a mea- 
sure, carnal. He affirms there was envying, 
(an evil temper,) occasioning strife among them, 
and yet does not give the least intimation that 
they had lost their faith. Nay, he manifestly 
declares they had not ; for then they would not 
be babes in Christ. And, what is most remark- 
able of all, he speaks of being carnal, and babes 
in Christ, as one and the same thing ; plainly 
showing that every believer is, in a degree, car- 
nal, while he is only a babe in Christ." — Works, 
vol. L, pp. 109, 110, 

The Thessalonian Believers. 
Of all the churches addressed by the apostle, 
so far as we have any information, this is the 
most faultless. He makes no complaints, prefers 



184 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

no charges against them, but commends them 
for their devotion to God. Their " work of faith 
and labor of love, and patience of hope," are 
occasions of devout and continued thankfulness 
to God. They had received the gospel, not in 
word only, but " in power and in the Holy Ghost 
and in much assurance." They had become 
followers of the apostles and of the Lord, and 
although they had received the word in much 
affliction, they had received it " with joy of the 
Holy Ghost." They were " ensamples of all that 
believed," and from them the word of God 
sounded out in every place, and their faith was 
spread abroad. They had " turned to God from 
idols to serve the living and true God." And in 
this delightful state they were waiting " for the Son 
of man from heaven." With all these evidences 
of a sound conversion, the apostle prayed " ex- 
ceedingly," that he might see them, and that he 
might " perfect that which was lacking in their 
faith," which lack was " unblamable holiness." 
(1 Thess. iii. 10-13.) 

In the 5th chapter of this epistle, is a prayer 
for this devout church : u The very God of peace 
sanctify you wholly, and I pray God that your 
whole soul and body and spirit be preserved 



THE THESSALONIAN BELIEVERS. 185 

blameless/' etc. They are assured that God is 
able to do it, and " will do it." 

The original word rendered wholly, as we have 
before remarked, is one of remarkable strength — 
none stronger in any language. It is from olos 
which signifies all, and telos which signifies per- 
fection. It means, " The very God of peace 
himself sanctify you entirely, or in all respects 
to perfection. And may your whole person— 
the spirit, and the soul, and the body be pre- 
served blameless/' 

The Thessalonians were assured that they 
could be wholly sanctified, and could be preserved 
blameless in all their moral activities. This is 
set before them as a blessing, not yet received, 
but within the grasp of simple faith. 

The objection urged to this view of the text 
is, that the apostle prays, not that each shall be 
sanctified wholly, but that all of them shall be 
sanctified. The objector would read the text 
thus : " The very God of peace sanctify all of 
you ;" making it apply to the church as a whole, 
and not to the extent of the work in each in- 
dividual heart. In order to give the full sense 
of the word wholly, the objector should add to 
all Qf you, the other sense, perfectly, which he 



186 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

must admit exists. Then his all of you would 
make nothing against our view, as what belongs 
to one, belongs to all, viz., perfection. 

Then the conclusion of the verse must forever 
overthrow the objector's view. The whole spirit 
and soul and body is to be preserved blameless, 
etc. The whole man being thus preserved, 
shows that the apostle had in view a personal 
sanctification. This proves that even converted 
people need to be " wholly sanctified/' and may 
be, for the " very God of peace " is faithful, and 
"will do it." Partial sanctification is the state 
of all believers who are only born again, but not 
" made perfect in love." 

The dogma, so earnestly pressed by some, that 
the work of heart purity is complete in conver- 
sion, does not harmonize with the prayer of the 
apostle. He prays for a people whom he re- 
garded as sanctified, but not wholly sanctified. 
He believed, however, that God, the God of 
peace, could do even this for them, and for this 
grace he earnestly prays. 

Notwithstanding the clearness with which 
this truth is taught, there are to be found those 
who make objections to it. To these we call the 
reader's attention in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER XL 

HOLINESS SUBSEQUENT TO CONVERSION, 
SCRIPTURAL. 

OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE. 

u r I lHE distinction which is made in the Scrip- 
-*- tures between the two, [justification and 
entire sanctification] is regarded so obvious and 
incontrovertible by most writers, that it has 
naturally passed as an established truth into 
treatises on theology. It is also recognized al- 
most constantly in sermons and in religious ex- 
hortations and conversation. There is, perhaps, 
as much unanimity among religious men on this 
subject as on almost any subject of theological 
inquiry. And the attempt to confound justifica- 
tion and sanctification together, which has been 
made from time to time, would necessarily tend, 
if it were successful, to perplex and confuse the 
established forms of speech among men, as well 
as the authorized and scriptural modes of re- 
ligious thought." — Interior Life, p. 174. 

187 






188 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

1. It is objected that this doctrine represents 
God as doing Sis work imperfectly. 

The sinner, it is claimed, when seeking God, 
asks to be saved ; and if God does not, in answer to 
his prayer, fully save him, He does His work im- 
perfectly. And if He does save him fully, a second 
work is not only unnecessary, but unscrip- 
tural. This is a very plausible objection, but un- 
sound. 

That God does His work perfectly, there can 
be no doubt. But what is a perfect work of God 
in justification? God's work is always in har- 
mony with man's faith. Whatever the intelli- 
gence perceives as the need of the soul, and faith 
humbly grasps, God bestows. 

What is the chief, the all pervading desire of 
the sinner ? Is it that his heart may be made 
pure ? What does he know or believe about a 
clean heart ? He is under sentence of death, 
and condemnation rests heavily upon his soul. 
He is guilty and must have pardon. An offended 
God is seen all around him, and he pleads for 
reconciliation. His cry is not, cleanse, but "for- 
give!" " God be merciful to me a sinner." 
" Turn away Thine anger from me." He sees 
nothing beyond this. Every other thought is 



OBJECTIONS TO THE D0CTKINE. 189 

swallowed up in this one — " I must be reconciled 
to my offended God." 

This is the prayer of the penitent which God 
hears and answers. The culprit is forgiven, fully 
forgiven for Christ's sake ; and a new life springs 
up in his soul ; and he finds himself joyfully re- 
peating — " Though Thou wast angry with me, 
Thine anger is turned away and Thou comfortest 
me." He sings, 

" My God is reconciled ; 

His pardoning voice I hear: 
He owns me for His child ; 

I can no longer fear : 
With confidence I now draw nigh, 
And Father, Abba, Father, cry." 

He receives according to his faith. He knows 
little of the deep depravity of his heart, and it 
is well he does not at first, for such a discoverv 
would paralyze his faith, and quite extinguish 
his hope. 

Sin has a two-fold character, or exists in the 
soul after two modes or forms. The one is called 
actual sin, from w T hich comes our guilt. The 
other is original or birth sin, from which comes 
original depravity. We are guilty for what we do ; 
but we were depraved before we were responsible 



190 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

for our doing. Guilt and condemnation come of 
what we do, while depravity lies back of our 
doing, in original sin. 

The existence of original and actual sin has 
always been accepted by the Christian Church 
as a scriptural doctrine. 

Salvation has a two-fold character, or is applied 
in two forms. For guilt there is forgiveness ; 
for pollution there is cleansing. Forgiveness 
can only extend to actual transgression, and 
never to original depravity. We can only be 
forgiven for what we have done. We were not 
responsible for original depravity. 

Original depravity must be removed, and as it 
cannot be forgiven, it must be cleansed. This is 
in perfect harmony with the Scriptures. — " If 
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to 
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all 
unrighteousness." " Our sins," must be under- 
stood as sins which we have committed, which 
have brought guilt upon the soul, and must be 
forgiven. '? All unrighteousness," or the absence 
of holiness, must be understood as depravity, 
which is not reached by forgiveness, but must 
be cleansed. 

Here is the need for the two works — forgive- 



OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE. 191 

ness and cleansing. When the soul is converted, 
all its sins — the sins it has committed, are taken 
away. There is nothing left of what we have 
done. The forgiveness has extended to " all 
things," and the new life is a " new creation. " 
11 Old things," all that we have done, " have 
passed away, and all things are become new/' and 
we are placed in the same relation to God which 
we should have sustained had we never sinned. 
In conversion God does what He undertakes 
to do — places us back where we were before we 
committed sin. Such an act does not necessarily 
touch original depravity, -as we should have 
needed cleansing from that if we had never been 
guilty of personal transgression; as that was 
upon us before we began to commit sin. 

In this view of the subject, we see the great 
and mighty work wrought in conversion — a work, 
complete, and in no respect imperfect in itself; 
and at the same time we see the need of a further 
work, which shall remove original depravity, 
which work is accomplished by " cleansing us 
from all unrighteousness." 

These views are common, and in harmony with 
the best minds of the Church. 

Bishop Foster says, " Believers are not, by 



192 SCRIFTUBAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

virtue of the new birth, entirely free from sin, 
either as it respects the inward taint or outward 
occasional act." 

" I need scarcely insist upon this, it is so uni- 
versally the faith of the Church." 

" But it is asked with earnestness, Is not the 
work of God perfect in regeneration ? If you 
mean, Is not the soul regenerated ? we answer, 
Certainly it is ; but if you mean, Is it not there- 
by perfectly holy ? we must answer, It does not 
so seem to us. Both penitence and regeneration 
are parts of entire sanctification, but they are 
not the whole. But is not a person regenerated 
a perfect child, and is sanctification anything 
more than development ? When a soul is re- 
generated, all the elements of holiness are im- 
parted to it, or the graces are implanted in it, in 
complete number, and the perfection of these 
graces is entire sanctification; and hence, we 
insist that entire sanctification does not take 
place in regeneration, for the graces are not 
perfect. And again ; though in regeneration 
all the elements of holiness are imparted, all 
the rudiments of inbred sin are not destroyed ; 
and hence, again, the absence of complete 
sanctification, which, when it occurs, expels 



OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE. 193 

all sin." — Christian Purity, pp. 107, 108, 
109. 

" It is not the first cry of the sinner," says 
Dr. Upham, " that he may be sanctified, but that 
he may be forgiven. It is his past sins which 
stare him in the face. It is his past sins which 
must be washed away. And until this is done, 
and at the feet of Jesus he has received the re- 
mission of his transgressions, he has no other 
desire, no other thought. But when he has ex- 
perienced a release from the bitter memory of 
the past, and has felt the rising hope of forgive- 
ness, and not till then, is his mind occupied with 
the distinct subject of the reality, the obligation, 
and the blessedness of a holy heart in all time 
to come." — Interior Life, p. 171. 

"The awakened sinner," says Eev. L. Lee, 
" has his mind mainly directed to the guilt of 
his sin, and his inability to save himself without 
God ; and cries to God for pardon and a new 
heart. Faith is limited by the view his intelli- 
gence takes of his necessity; and the work 
wrought, and the blessing obtained, are accord- 
ing to the faith exercised. With most persons 
it may be presumed that their view of the whole 
subject, at the time of their conversion, may be 
13 



194 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS F HOLINESS. 

expressed in these words : ■ I am a sinner lost, 
Christ is a Saviour who died to save me ; able 
and willing to save now. Lord, for Christ's sake, 
save me this moment/ Subsequently, the neces- 
sity of a deeper work is seen and felt. At any 
time when the intelligence comprehends what is 
wanting to constitute a state of entire sanctifica- 
tion, and faith is exercised, the work will be 
finished." — Theology, p. 214. 

If regeneration and entire sanctification are 
always wrought at the same time, what dis- 
position is to be made of the tens of thousands 
in the Church who profess to be justified freely, 
but are conscious of not being sanctified wholly ? 
They are among the most active and worthy 
members of our Churches. If the doctrine 
which we oppose be true, these are all children 
of the wicked one. "We could not consent thus to 
curse whom God owns and blesses ; but we should 
be obliged to do so if we believed this dogma. 

"There are multitudes in all the Christian 
Churches/' says Dr. Geo. Peck, "who exhibit the 
fruits, and have the inward testimony of a state 
of justification, but who do not enjoy the great 
blessing of perfect love. "What shall we say of 
those upon the hypothesis here opposed ? We 



OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE. 195 

must, so far as I can see, come to one of the fol- 
lowing conclusions concerning them : Either 
they were never really justified, or they have lost 
their entire sanctification without losing their jus- 
tification ; or, they have lost both one and the other, 
and are, consequently, in a backslidden state. 

" Can we, consistently with charity, come to 
the first conclusion, viz., that all those Christians 
who are conscious of the absence of entire sancti- 
fication or perfect love, in question, were never 
really born of the Spirit or justified? Perhaps 
none would, for a moment, embrace such a con- 
clusion. And will any who hold the identity of 
the new birth and entire sanctification, fall upon 
the second supposition, viz., that these persons 
have lost the blessing of perfect love, and yet 
retain that of regeneration ? This conclusion 
seems incongruous and even absurd. For if 
these two things are identical, how can they be 
separate ? If there is any reason which goes to 
identify regeneration and entire sanctification in 
their commencement, does not the same reason 
identify them in their progress ? If they are 
one and the same, how can they be separated 
under any circumstances or at any time ? 

Well, who will embracethe third supposition, 



196 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

viz., that all who were ever justified, and do not 
now enjoy the blessing of entire sanctification, 
have fallen away from the favor of God ? I think 
few will hazard such a conclusion as this. The 
result, then, to which I come, is, that the theory 
which asserts that entire sanctification invariably 
takes place when justification and regeneration 
take place, is inconsistent with fact and experi- 
ence." — Christian Perfection, p. 366. 

We think we have shown that to reject 
the doctrine, that regeneration and entire sancti- 
fication are experienced at one and the same 
time, is not to represent God as doing His work 
imperfectly. The absurdity of the dogma is of 
itself sufficient to convince every candid mind 
that it has no foundation in truth. 

2. Another objection urged against the doc- 
trine of entire sanctification is, that its presenta- 
tion, as a distinct work, is calculated to disparage 
justification. 

We are not able to see how the faithful pre- 
sentation of entire sanctification disparages justi- 
fication, any more than a faithful presentation of 
justification disparages sanctification. They are 
both of God, and are great Bible truths, and at- 
tested by experience. 



OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE. 197 

Does the teacher disparage his mathematical 
axioms in urging the student to leave them and 
proceed to his demonstrations? Does he dis- 
parage the alphabet, by urging the pupil to leave 
it and proceed to combine letters into syllables, 
and syllables into words, and words into sent- 
ences, and sentences into discourses ? Does the 
architect disparage his foundation by leaving it 
to erect a beautiful superstructure thereon ? 

It is no disparagement to the alphabet that 
the finished discourse is more highly prized than 
the letters of which it is composed. Still, without 
the letters, there could have been no discourse. 
The axioms are not disparaged because the dem- 
onstrations are regarded with greater interest ; 
especially as it is understood that no such results 
could be reached without their aid. It is no 
disparagement of a foundation that the super- 
structure is more highly prized, when it is known 
that the superstructure derives its permanency 
from the foundation on which it rests. 

In like manner, it is no disparagement of 
justification that entire sanctification occupies 
an advanced position in Christian experience 
which God never assigned to justification. 
Sanctification completes what justification so 



198 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

gloriously begins, as the superstructure completes 
what was so well begun with the foundation. 

To cease presenting the subject of sanctifica- 
tion, fearing that justification might suffer there- 
by, is much like stopping with the foundation, 
fearing that it might be disparaged by a beautiful 
superstructure. 

We believe that justification is glorious, but 
we believe that entire sanctification excels in 
glory. The one is the foundation, the other is 
the top-stone. 

Mr. Wesley did not believe that justification 
would suffer by urging the people to the experi- 
ence of sanctification. He urged his preachers 
and members to seek it, profess it, and urge it 
upon the people. In writing to one of his 
preachers he says : " Dear Brother,' — Where 
Christian perfection is not strongly and explicitly 
preached there is seldom any remarkable bless- 
ing from God, and consequently little addition 
to the society, and little life in the members of 
it. Therefore, if Jacob Eowell is grown faint, 
and says but little about it, do you supply his 
lack of service. Speak, and spare not. Let 
not regard for any man induce you to betray 
the truth of God. Till you press the believers 



OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE. 199 

to expect full salvation now, you must not look 
for any revival." — Works, vol. vi. p. 761. 

The General Conference of 1832, in the Past- 
oral Address, held similar views. They say, 
" Is it not time for us, in this matter at least, to 
return to first principles ? Is it not time that 
we throw off the reproach of inconsistency with 
which we are charged in regard to this matter ? 
Only let all who have been born of the Spirit, 
and have tasted of the good Word of God, seek 
with the same ardor to be made perfect in love 
as they sought for the pardon of their sins, and 
soon will our Class-Meetings and Love-Feasts 
be cheered by the relation of experiences of this 
high character, as they now are with those which 
tell of justification and the new birth. And when 
this shall come to be the case, we may expect a 
corresponding increase in the amount of our Chris- 
tian enjoyments, and in the force of the religious 
influence we shall exert over others." — Journals. 

There is no disparagement of justification 
here ; no fear expressed that it would be under- 
rated ; but an urgent appeal to all to go on unto 
the actual possession of this experience, and then 
proclaim it to the glory of God and the salva- 
tion of men. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

HOLINESS — WHEN ATTAINED. 

TF we are required to " go on unto perfection/' 
•J- to " purify ourselves even as He is pure/' to 
"cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh 
and spirit/' when may we look to have the work 
accomplished? How long subsequent to con- 
version may we look to be sanctified wholly ? 
There are differences of opinion on this subject. 

There is substantial agreement among the 
friends and opponents of holiness on several 
points. Dr. Hovey, in his " Doctrine of the 
Higher Life/' submits the following points of 
agreement. 

1. " The piety of many persons who must be 
esteemed Christians, is mournfully defective. 
Their faith in the promise of God is weak, their 
hope of eternal life faint, and their love to the 
souls of men inoperative. They make no visible 
progress in the divine life. They give no 
evidence by word or deed, that ' the joy of the 
Lord is their strength/ and that the kingdom of 
200 



" HOLINESS — WHEN ATTAINED. 201 

God, as known by them, ' is righteousness and 
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost/ After years 
of connection with the Church, they remain 
babes in Christ, having little more strength than 
when they tasted the good word of God, and the 
powers of the world to come. 

2. " This course of thought anticipates a 
second point of agreement; namely, that the 
experience of Christians, immediately after con- 
version, is not the highest which they should 
expect in this life. However sweet and joyous 
it may be, this experience is the sparkling brook 
rather than the mighty river ; and every affluent 
from the hills. of Providence on the one hand, or 
of grace on the other, should increase its volume 
and power. The work of renewal is only begun, 
not finished, by regeneration, and many live as 
if they supposed the work of sanctification to 
be carried as far, at the moment of the new 
birth, as it will ever be carried on the shores of 
time. Such a view, it is almost needless to re- 
peat, has no support in the Word of God, and 
no analogy in the constitution and course of 
nature. It cannot, therefore, be depreciated and 
opposed too heartily. 

3. " A third point of agreement may be found 



202 SCRIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

in the belief that sanctification is wrought by 
the Spirit of God. Turning away, then, from 
the question of means and modes, it is important 
to observe that those who accept the doctrine 
of 'the higher life' agree with those who reject 
it, in ascribing the work of sanctification to the 
Holy Ghost. 

4. a A. fourth point of agreement may be dis- 
covered in the belief that sanctification is com- 
plete before the soul enters Paradise. No relish 
for evil, no selfish or sinful desire, will pollute 
the spirit when it bids adieu to the present state, 
and enters into rest." Pp. 10-12. 

"With these points of agreement, acknowledged 
by an able opponent of the experience, we are 
led to inquire, When is this work, so important, 
and so much neglected, and so necessary to fit 
us for heaven, to be wrought'? It must be done 
before death liberates the spirit, for there is no 
moral change beyond. 

We are utterly unable to comprehend how 
God can save us a moment before death, and not 
be able to do it an hour, a day, a week, a month, 
a year, or many years before. It must be either 
that He is unable or unwilling. We are assured 
that " He is able to save them to the uttermost 



HOLINESS — WHEN ATTAINED. 203 

that come unto God by Him." The word utter- 
most as we have more than once remarked, is 
compounded of — pantos, which means all, and 
telos, which is uniformly translated in our New 
Testament, perfection. Here is clearly revealed 
the Divine ability to save from all sin. One would 
think that the object in revealing this stupendous 
fact would be to induce all to trust in Christ to 
thus save them. Is it true that His revealed power 
to save is unlimited, while His grace and love are 
limited ? The apostle assures the Thessalonians 
that, " faithful is He that calleth you, who also 
will do it." The thing to be done was — " The very 
God of peace sanctify you wholly.*' The term 
11 wholly " has about the same sense as the term 
" uttermost." Compounded of. two words — olos, 
meaning all, and telos, meaning perfection. And 
that this is to be accomplished before death, and 
not at death, is proved from the declaration, " I 
pray God that your whole spirit and soul and 
body be preserved blameless unto the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ." They were not only to 
be " sanctified wholly," but were to be preserved 
wholly sanctified until the coming of Jesus.- 
How such language sweeps away the notion of 
death cleansing, or death salvation. 



204 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

If God be both able and trustworthy to save 
us now, the reason why the work is not wrought 
is found in our personal neglect, or refusal to 
perform the condition — "believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ. ,, 

It is admitted by many, that while it is pos- 
sible for a soul to be sanctified wholly some time 
before death, it is nevertheless true that it is not 
an instantaneous work. It must be wrought by 
a gradual process. 

1. What is the voice of experiences of this 
subject ? 

The testimony of experience should go far in 
settling questions of experience. As God has 
nowhere said that a soul cannot be wholly sanc- 
tified instantaneously or immediately, but has 
rather urged all to seek, with the promise, that 
" according to your faith, so shall it be unto you," 
an appeal to experience is in place. Has God 
thus wholly saved any soul ? 

Mr. Wesley, in the early part of his ministry, 
believed that entire sanctification was almost 
always a gradual work, to be received at, or 
near death. He could not believe that a newly 
converted child of God, except in rare cases, 
could be fully saved until some time had elapsed. 



HOLINESS — WHEN ATTAINED. 205 

But so numerous were the examples of such a 
salvation, and so greatly did they multiply 
around him, the genuineness of whose experience 
he saw no reason to doubt, that he fully accepted 
the doctrine of instantaneous sanctification — the 
privilege of believers at any time after conversion. 

Hester Ann Kogers speaks of an interesting 
interview which she had with Mr. Wesley, follow- 
ing a most delightful love-feast at Macclesfield. 
She said, " Ah, sir, there are some who cannot 
receive all the testimonies that were borne last 
night ; they think those who were justified only 
a few weeks or months ago, are deceived when 
they pretend to know anything of sanctification." 

" Well," said Mr. Wesley, " but you and I do 
not limit God ; and indeed the time has now 
come when a fuller dispensation of the Spirit is 
given than has ever been known before. Fifty 
years ago, and indeed before that time, there was 
here and there an instance of the power of God, 
but it was rarely the case. We seldom heard 
of instantaneous sanctification by faith. 

" The Moravian brethren seemed, for a time, 
the most clear ; but now there is no people in 
the world that speak so clear and distinct as the 
Methodists ; and we now see more clearly than 



206 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

at first ; there are more living witnesses of the 
power of God." • 

Just at parting, Mr. Wesley said, " I never 
before saw the nature of instantaneous sanctifi- 
cation as I do now." 

In 1764, after an extensive revival of holiness, 
he writes to a friend as follows : u Now, with 
God one day is as a thousand years. It plainly 
follows that the quantity of time is nothing to 
Him ; centuries, years, months, days, hours, and 
moments are exactly the same. Consequently, 
He can as well sanctify in a day after we are 
justified as a hundred years. There is no differ- 
ence at all, unless we suppose Him to be such a 
one as ourselves. Accordingly, we see, in - fact, 
that some of the most unquestionable witnesses 
of sanctifying grace were sanctified within a few 
days after they were justified. I have seldom 

known so dovoted a soul as S — — H , at 

Macclesfield, who was sanctified within nine days 
after she was convinced of sin. She was then 
twelve years old, and I believe was never after- 
ward heard to speak an improper word, or known 
to do an improper thing. Her look struck an 
awe into all that saw her. 

" Although, therefore, it usually pleases God 



HOLINESS — WHEN ATTAINED. 207 

to interpose some time between justification and 
sanctification, yet we must not fancy this to be 
an invariable rule. All who think this, must 
think we are sanctified by works, or which comes 
to the same, by suffering ; for, otherwise, what 
is time necessary for ? It must be either to do, 
or to suffer. Whereas, if nothing be required 
but simple faith, a moment is as good as an age. 

" The fact is, we are continually forming 
general rules from our own particular experience. 

Thus S H , having gone about and 

about herself, which took up a considerable 
time, might very naturally suppose all who are 
sanctified must stay for it near as long a time 
as she did." — Works, vol. vii. p. 14. 

In the year 1770, he writes to one of the 
members of his society as follows : " It is there- 
fore undoubtedly our duty to pray and look for 
full salvation every day, every hour, every mo- 
ment, without waiting till we have either done 
or suffered more. Why should not this be the 
accepted time? ,, — Works, vol. vii. p. 764. 

In 1762 the flame of holiness broke out at Bol- 
ton. In speaking of those who were sanctified, 
Mr. Wesley says ; " Two of these were, I think, 
justified and sanctified in less than three days." 



208 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

At Macclesfield he found forty who had pro- 
fessed heart purity. Of these he says : " I spoke 
to them, (forty in all,) one by one. Some of them 
said that they had received that blessing ten 
days, some seven, some four, some three days 
after they had found peace with God ; and two 
of them the next day. What marvel, since one 
day is with God as a thousand years ?" — Works, 
vol. iv. p. 135. 

It has been insisted that Mr. Wesley taught 
both a gradual and instantaneous work. No 
passage is more commonly cited than the follow- 
ing : "A man may be dying for a long time, yet 
he does not, properly speaking, die till the instant 
the soul is separated from the body ; and in that 
instant he lives the life of eternity. In like 
manner he may be dying to sin for some time, 
yet he is not dead to sin till sin is separated from 
his soul, and in that instant he lives the full life 
of love." — Plain Account, p. 80. 

The meaning of Mr. Wesley is, not that entire 
sanctification is gradual in some and instantan- 
eous in others, but that it is instantaneous in all, 
even in those who approach it by gradual 
steps. If he did intend to convey the idea, at 
this time, that the work was gradual in all 



HOLINESS — WHEN ATTAINED. 209 

cases, he certainly subsequently changed his 
views. 

The foregoing illustration was first published 
in 1758, some two years before the great revival 
of holiness began, such a revival as had never 
before attended the preaching of these holy men. 
Mr. Wesley says, " In the years 1759, '60, '61, 
and '62, their numbers multiplied exceedingly, 
not only in London and Bristol, hut in various 
parts of Ireland as well as England. Not trust- 
ing to the testimony of others, I carefully ex- 
amined most of these myself; and in London 
alone I found six hundred and fifty-two members 
of our society, who were exceedingly clear in 
their experience, and of whose testimony I could 
see no reason to doubt. I believe no year has 
passed since that time, wherein God has not 
wrought the same work in many others ; but 
sometimes in one part of England or Ireland, 
sometimes in another; — as the wind bloweth 
where it listeth ; and every one of these (after 
the most careful inquiry, I have not found one 
exception either in Great Britain or Ireland) 
has declared that his deliverance from sin was 
instantaneous ; that the change was wrought in 
a moment. Had half of these, or one-third, or 
14 



210 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

one in twenty, declared it was gradually wrought 
in them, I should have believed this with regard 
to them, and thought that some were gradually 
sanctified, and some instantaneously. But as I 
have not found, in so long a space of time, a 
single person speaking thus, as all who believe 
they are sanctified declare with one voice that 
the change was wrought in a moment, I cannot 
but believe tjfiat sanctification is commonly, if not 
always, an instantaneous work." — Vol. ii. p. 223. 

"Whatever might have been the views of Mr. 
Wesley in 1758, when he employed the illustra- 
tion referred to, there can be no doubt with re- 
gard to his views when he gave utterance to the 
foregoing sentiment. In the first case, it was both 
"gradual and instantaneous ;" in the latter, it 
was ■ - commonly, if not always, an instantaneous 
work." His mature views on this subject can- 
not be misunderstood. Experience, which was 
very widely extended during the great revival, 
from 1759 to 1763, did much to modify and 
correct his views on the subject. 

" To expect it," (Christian Perfection) at death, 
or some time hence, is much the same as not 
expecting it at all." — Vol. iv. p. 138. 

" Inquiring how it was, that in all these parts, 



HOLINESS — WHEN ATTAINED. 211 

we have scarce one living witness of it," (full 
salvation) " I constantly received, from every 
person, one and the same answer. * We see 
now, we sought it by our works : we thought it 
was to come gradually ; we never expected to 
receive it in a moment, by faith, as we did justi- 
fication/ What wonder is it then that we have 
been fighting all these years as one that beateth 
the air?" — Journal, May 25, 1761. 

Here is a clear statement, as to what were the 
views of the Methodists prior to 1760, and the 
reasons for those views, viz. : want of witnesses. 
There were only here and there a clear witness 
of full salvation, until the great revival com- 
menced in 1759, and then they became so numer- 
ous that the question of instantaneous sanctifi- 
cation was no longer a doubtful one, but became 
the constant theme of Mr. Wesley and his 
followers. 

2. This experience is not exclusively Wesley an. 

We could summon hundreds of men and women 
from all the Evangelical Churches, who would 
testify with one voice, that the work, which they 
variously name, the "higher life," " rest of faith," 
" complete trust," etc., was wrought in them in- 
stantaneously. 



212 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

The late Dr. Upham's testimony was : " There 
was no intellectual excitement, no very marked 
joy, when I reached this great rock of practical 
salvation. But I was distinctly conscious when 
I reached it." 

Dr. Mahan, while in conversation with some 
friends, looking for deliverance from u the cor- 
ruptions of his heart/' says : " "While thus em- 
ployed my heart leaped up in ecstacy indescrib- 
able, with the exclamation, f I have found it.' ' 

We need not multiply examples, we could fill 
many volumes with them. Such testimony, on a 
question of experience, must be accepted. 

3. Depravity can never be removed by growth 
in grace. 

It has been well said that " It does not belong, 
except in a very limited degree, to the laws of 
growth, to correct malformations and deep-seated 
organic, or vital irregularities. Growth is an 
increase or development of some living force ; 
not a destroyer or transformer of any living force. 
A child, with an organic disease, may grow ; 
but that will not cure the disease. A tree, with 
a worm at the heart, may grow. The worm may 
not prevent the tree from growing, nor does the 
growth of the tree either kill or remove the 



HOLINESS — WHEN ATTAINED. 213 

worm. So, no degree of spiritual growth can 
remove the fixed malformation, the deep-seated 
organic disease of sin from the human heart. 
As in the former cases, there must be a special 
or specific remedy. So in this case there must 
be a special miracle of grace — the power of God, 
invoked by faith, for this particular end ; con- 
sequently, instantaneously received." 

Growth is but the accumulation of the same 
kind of particles of which the animal or plant 
was possessed at its beginning. Growth never 
changes a tree or animal into one of another 
kind. It never changes a horse into an ox, nor 
an eagle into a dove, nor a fox into a lamb, nor 
a crab-apple into a bell-flower. It makes the 
horse a larger horse, but he is a horse still ; 
the eagle a larger eagle, but it is an eagle still ; 
the fox a larger fox, but a fox still ; and the 
crab-apple only becomes a larger crab. In like 
manner a sinner does not grow out of sin into 
justification, nor out of justification into sancti- 
fication. As a river does not grow by simply 
running, but by the inflowing of other streams 
or rivers, so the growth of a believer does not 
consist in what is removed, but what is added. 
Holiness is the gift of God. 



214 SCKIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

You cannot grow sin out of your heart by the 
expansion of what is there. You may as well 
attempt to grow weeds out of your garden or 
grow vermin from vegetation. 

There is only one way to get rid of weeds, and 
that is to pull them up. The only way to re- 
move sin is to seek by faith for the " blood of 
Jesus Christ which cleanseth from all sin." 

It is claimed that this view of entire sanctifi- 
cation undervalues the old-fashioned doctrine of 
growing in grace. 

One writer affirms, that " growth in grace for 
a time is an indispensable condition of entire 
sanctification." Persons who neglect this, it is 
said, " seem not to understand, that praying for 
immediate and entire sanctification before they 
have so grown in grace as to be able to abstain 
from all outward sin, is downright enthusiasm — 
expecting and praying for an end without using 
the appropriate means. I doubt if repentance 
is more necessary to justification than is a growth 
in grace to entire sanctification." 

To assert that growth in grace is a condition 
of sanctification, is the same as saying that entire 
sanctification is by works, a doctrine repudiated 
by all. 



HOLINESS — WHEN ATTAINED. 215 

Dr. Hodge says of sanctification, that it is not 
a '■ mere process of moral culture by moral 
means ; it is as truly supernatural in its methods 
as in its nature." — Systematic Theology \ Vol. iii. 
p. 220. 

Dr. George Smith, F.S.A., says (Lectures on 
Theology) " As we obtained pardon by simple 
faith in Jesus, so must we obtain purity. "We 
are no more able to work out the latter in our 
own hearts than the former. We must come 
then to the great and precious promises, and 
exercise a faith precisely analogous to that by 
which we were justified.'' 

Mr. Wesley says, " Exactly as we are justi- 
fied by faith, so are we sanctified by faith. 
Faith is the condition of sanctification, exactly 
as it is of justification. It is the condition ; 
none are sanctified but he that believes ; every 
one that believes is sanctified, whatever else he 
has or has not. In other words, no man is sanc- 
tified till he believes ; every man when he be- 
lieves is sanctified." (Vol. i. p. 388.) 

To say that we are not to pray for entire 
sanctification until we are " able to abstain from 
all outward sins," is to ignore the fact that our 
" outward sins " are but the cropping out of heart 



216 SCBIPTURAL VIEWS 0F< HOLINESS. 

depravity, which entire sanctification can alone 
remove. One of the chief needs of entire sanc- 
tification is to root out heart corruption, which 
is ever leading us into sin. Does growth in 
grace save us from one class of sins ; and faith 
in Christ's blood from another ? 

It is frequently said, and with great propriety, 
that " growing in grace " is not growing into 
grace. To grow in grace we must first have the 
grace in which to grow. " Growing into grace 
is much like swimming into the water." We can 
understand how a person can swim in the water, 
but not how he can swim into it. 

4. Wo one has ever obtained the grace of heart 
purity gradually. 

The very idea of gradual, removes from the 
whole process the now. Gradual does not mean 
now, and never can mean now. No gradualist 
can bring his faith to the now. Long and 
earnest have been the struggles for heart purity 
on the gradual line, but no one has yet confessed 
to having attained unto the object of pursuit. 

" I believe in a gradual work/' said an aged 
servant of the Lord, as he arose and testified in 
a meeting for holiness. " I am expecting it 
gradually." 



HOLINESS — WHEN ATTAINED. 217 

" How long have you been seeking ?" we in- 
quired. 

" About seventy years," responded the old 
pilgrim. 

" Have you received it yet ? " 

" No, I cannot say that I have, but I am 
seeking, and trust God will give it to me before 
I die. This is my faith." 

u Seventy years ! and not received it yet ? How 
much longer do you think it will require to gain 
this prize of perfect love ? " 

" I do not know. I am looking that God may 
give it to me." 

" How much nearer does the blessing seem to 
you now than when you commenced, seventy 
years ago ? " 

" I cannot say that it appears any nearer ; 
but I am hoping and trusting that God will yet 
fully save me." 

" Now, beloved, if I had been seventy years 
getting nowhere, on the gradual line, by the 
grace of God I would try the instantaneous and 
see if I could not get somewhere." 

He came to the altar as a seeker of heart 
purity, and within twenty-four hours, arising 
from the altar, he said : " As far as the east is 



218 SCRirTUBAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

from the west, so far has God removed my 
transgressions from me." The Lord had saved 
him by faith alone. 

A congregation of believers were invited to 
come to the altar as seekers of instantaneous 
sanctification. A leading member of the church 
said, at the close of the meeting, " Had you in- 
vited those who were seeking the blessing gradu- 
ally, I would have come. I believe in seeking 
it gradually." 

The next time the invitation was extended, 
those who were seeking the blessing of heart 
purity gradually were invited to come. The 
gentleman before named came, and knelt with 
the company of seekers. 

A little time elapsed, and he beckoned to the 
minister to come to him. As he approached, 
the seeker said, " I cannot get this blessing now." 

" Why ? " inquired the minister. 

" I am seeking it gradually, and that fact. I 
find, prevents my faith claiming it now. 11 

Gradual does not mean now, and never can 
mean now. But if by faith, then it is now. 

"We will close this chapter with a quotation 
from Mr. Wesley, which must strike all as ex- 
ceedingly pertinent. 



HOLINESS — WHEN ATTAINED. 219 

u Indeed, this is so evident a truth, that well- 
nigh all the children of God scattered abroad, 
however they differ in other points, yet gener- 
ally agree in this : that although we may, ■ by 
the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the body ; ' 
resist and conquer both outward and inward 
sins ; although we may iveaken our enemies day 
by day ; yet we cannot drive them out By all 
the grace which is given at justification, we can- 
not extirpate them ; though we watch and pray 
ever so much we cannot wholly cleanse either 
our hearts or hands. Most sure we cannot 
till it shall please our Lord to speak to our 
hearts again, to speak the second time, Be clean ; 
and then only the leprosy is cleansed. Then 
only, the evil root, the carnal mind, is destroyed ; 
and inbred sin subsists no more. But if there 
be no such second change ; if there be no instan- 
taneous deliverance after justification; if there 
be none but a gradual work of God (that there 
is a gradual work none denies), then we must 
be content, as well as we can, to remain full of 
sin till death/' {Vol. i. p. 122.) 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 

AFTER all we have said, the most difficult 
question connected with this whole subject 
is, " How may I secure the blessing of a pure 
heart?" 

Much has been spoken and written upon this 
subject, and yet it is dark to him who has no 
light. It is very difficult to make clear, experi- 
mental truths, to the mind of him who has no 
experience. It is quite as difficult to explain 
the way of faith to a seeker of entire sanctifica- 
tion, as to a seeker of pardon. Experimental 
matters, to be understood, must be experienced. 

Then there is such a marked variety in Chris- 
tian experience, that what is adapted to one, is 
not fully adapted to another. Our method will 
be to lay down general directions, and leave the 
seeker with the Spirit of God and his own heart. 

1. In order to make the work certain, we 
must have the assurance that we are justified 
freely. 
220 



HOLINESS— HOW OBTAINED. 221 

We need not dwell upon the importance of 
such an % experience as a starting point in the 
pursuit of full salvation. Many have, no doubt, 
made a very great mistake here, and, conse- 
quently, have taken for entire sanctification 
what was only conversion. Their rejoicing in 
the light has been short-lived, and their profes- 
sion has done more harm than good. 

2. "If you would hit a mark," says Mr. 
Fletcher, " you must know where it is. Some 
people aim at Christian perfection ; but, missing 
it for angelical perfection, they shoot above the 
mark, miss it, and then peevishly give up their 
hopes. Others place the mark as much too low ; 
hence it is that you hear them profess to have 
attained Christian perfection, when they have 
not so much as attained the mental serenity of 
a philosopher, or the candor of a good-natured, 
conscientious heathen." — ( Works f Vol.ii. p. 634.) 

It is not to be supposed that we can under- 
stand all the adjuncts, antecedents and conse- 
quents of this subject before we have had an 
experience, yet we may possess such a knowledge 
of it as to be able to seek it with a firm confi- 
dence that it shall be received. 

" If we must know," says Dr. Gr. Peck, " the 



222 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

whole way with the clearness of intuition, or of 
present consciousness, before we will take a step, 
God will doubtless leave us in our present igno- 
rance with regard to the whole matter. If I 
wish to visit a distant point, concerning which 
I know nothing excepting from report of tra- 
velers, it would be an extravagant demand for 
me to require perfect information with regard 
to all the various appearances of the way, and 
all the fortunes of the journey, before I would 
venture to set off. It would be quite enough 
for me to have satisfactory evidence that the 
desired point was accessible — that the way was 
feasible — and that the exercise of my natural 
powers of body and mind would, in due time, bring 
me there. With this evidence before me, would 
it be rational for me to sit still and speculate upon 
circumstances which I never can fully understand 
until they come under my own observation ? " 
3. We should not aim at the experience of an- 
other. No error among seekers of heart purity 
is more common than this, and few more fatal. 
Such an experience as you seek might be ill- 
suited to your temperament. He who saves, 
knows best what we need, and will adapt His 
gifts to us with infinite wisdom. 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 223 

4. The work of consecration must be complete. 
We use the word consecration, not because it is the 
best word, but because it is the word in most com- 
mon use, and will be more likely to be understood. 

Entire consecration is giving ourselves a com- 
plete sacrifice to God. The work of entire sanc- 
tification is frequently called, "Entire consecra- 
tion." But surely this does not describe the 
state known as heart purity ? 

There is this difference between entire conse- 
cration and entire sanctification : the one is 
what we do, by Divine help ; the other is what 
God does in us. Consecration is a devotement 
of ourselves to God, while heart purity is a 
work wrought in us by the Holy Ghost. There 
may be entire consecration without entire sancti- 
fication, but there cannot be the latter without 
the former. It is not to be supposed that the 
former can long exist without the latter, but 
still it may exist. 

This consecration of ourselves to God must be 
entire — including body, soul, life, talents, repu- 
tation — everything. These are to be used when, 
where, and as God demands, and only thus. It 
includes being, doing, and suffering. The soul 
in this state of abandonment, cries. 



224 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

" Here I give my all to Thee, 

Friends, and time, and earthly store ; 
Soul and body Thine to be, — 
Wholly Thine — forevermore." 

The poet has farther described the universal- 
ity of this devotement. 

" Write on our garnered treasures, 
Write on our choicest pleasures, 
Upon things new and old, 
The precious stone and gold ; 
On wife, husband, children, friends, — 
On all that goodness lends ; — 
Go write on your good name, 
,Upon your cherished fame, — 
On every pleasant thing, — 
On stores that Heaven doth fling 
Into your basket, — write ! 
Upon the smiles of God, 
Upon His scourging rod, — 
Write on your inmost heart, 
Write upon every part, — 
To Him who claims the whole, 
Time, talent, body, soul, 
' Holiness unto the Lord.' " 

Bat just at this point some one will inquire 
for the difference between the consecration we 
made of ourselves at the time of our conversion, 
and the consecration that our entire sanctifica- 
tion calls for ? This is an interesting question. 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 225 

The distinction, as we think, will develop in four 
particulars. 

FIRST DIFFERENCE. 

"When we came to God for pardon, we brought 
and offered powers that were dead, and only 
dead, in trespasses and in sins ; but, when we 
would realize the experience of entire sanctifica- 
tion, we consecrate powers that are permeated 
with the new life of regeneration. Hence, says 
an apostle, l Yield yourselves unto God as those 
who are alive from the dead ; • and again, 1 1 
beseech you, brethren, (he is addressing Chris- 
tians), that ye present your bodies, i. e. your 
souls and bodies, a part being put for the -vWiole, 
yourselves a ( living sacrifice. 1 This is the first 
distinction. . 

SECOND DIFFERENCE. 

When we dedicated ourselves to the Divine 
service at conversion, we seemed to mass our 
offering } and said, very sincerely and earnestly, — 

* Here, Lord, I give myself away : 
'Tis all that lean do;' 

but when we would sanctify ourselves unto God, 
with a view to this richer and deeper experience, 
then, with the illumination received at conver- 
sion and characterizing our regenerated life, our 
15 



226 SCRIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS, 

consecration becomes more intelligent, specific 
and careful. It is not merely myself as before. 
It is now these hands, these feet, these senses, 
this body with all its members and powers ; it is 
now my soul, with all its ennobling faculties, — 
its understanding, judgment, memory, imagi- 
nation, conscience, will, and affections. It is now 
all my talents of time, influence, energy, repu- 
tation, home, kindred, friends, worldly substance, 
— every thing. Upon all we have and are we 
specifically and honestly inscribe, * Sacred to 
Jesus ;' covenanting to use all in harmony with 
the Divine will. Some at this point have been 
careful to write upon paper the several items 
that were included, as well as the several obli- 
gations that were assumed, in this fuller conse- 
cration of themselves to God. This was the case 
with the celebrated Dr. Jonathan Edwards, of 
the Presbyterian Church. 

THIRD DIFFERENCE. 

When we would thus specifically sanctify our- 
selves unto God, there is likely to rise up in the 
mind, or before the conscience, some peculiarly 
trying test of obedience. This is varied in differ- 
ent experiences. It may be a little thing, a very 
little thing, but it is not on that account any the 



HOLINESS— HOW OBTAINED. 227 

less formidable. Eating an apple amid Paradi- 
saical scenes would seem ; from a human stand- 
point, to have been a very little thing ; and then 
observe, it was a test required of one who was 
living before God. Adam failed in the test; a 
failure i that brought death into the world, and 
all our woe.' So the test that infinite holiness 
may lay upon the regenerated may be a little 
thing, perhaps something connected with our 
appetites, or with our adornments, or with our 
associations, or with our services. The question 
may be, Will you give up that doubtful indul- 
gence, a something in which you regard your own 
inclinations rather than your soul's good and 
God's glory ? Will you lay aside the last weight, 
and the sin that doth so easily beset you ? Will 
you take your place with the entirely devoted, 
and consent that those around shall say reproach- 
fully, ' He is one of the sanctified ? ' Oh ! it 
is hesitation or reluctance upon just such points, 
that will explain very much of the feeble, halt- 
ing, sickly, religious experience and Christian 
life that characterizes too many of the professed 
disciples of the Lord Jesus. 

F0TJKTH DIFFERENCE. 

This will appear in the object or end of the 



228 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

two consecrations. When we came offering our- 
selves to God in the first instance, it was that we 
might obtain pardon : now we specifically yield 
all, including the doubtful indulgence, with a 
view to heart purity. Then, groaning under a 
sense of our guiltiness, we said, ' wretched 
man that I am ! ' We wanted to be lifted into 
the relationship, and admitted to the privileges 
of dear children. Now we come as children, 
having the Spirit of adoption ; not for pardon 
or peace, — these are not our conscious need, — 
but we come for a more perfect submission to 
the Divine will ; a more satisfactory sense of 
heart purity ; an increased ability to do or suffer 
all the will of our Father in heaven, and a deeper 
and a more blessed rest in Christ. 

Observe, then, these four- features, as belong- 
ing more especially to the consecration required 
of the regenerated." — Rev. Alfred Cookman. 

When such a consecration is made, the soul 

joyfully exclaims : 

t( To do, or not to do ; to have, 

Or not to have, I leave to Thee ; 
To be or not to be, I leave : 

Thy only will be done in me ! 
All my requests are lost in one, — 
' Father, Thy only will be done ! ' 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 229 

(( Welcome alike the crown or cross, 
Trouble I cannot ask, nor peace, 
Nor toil, nor rest, nor gain, nor loss, 

Nor joy, nor grief, nor pain, nor ease, 
Nor life, nor death ; but ever groan, 
1 Father, Thy only will be done !> " 

u A consecration thus deliberately made/' says 
Dr. Upham, u including all our acts, powers, and 
possessions of body, mind and estate, made with- 
out any reserve either in objects, time, or place; 
embracing trial and suffering as well as action ; 
never to be modified and never to be withdrawn ; 
and which con temp] ates its fulfilment in divine 
and not in human strength, — necessarily brings 
one into a new relationship with God* of the 
most intimate, interesting, and effective nature." 

Consecration is simply consenting that Christ 
shall have all ; it is the consent of the will to 
the unobstructed reign of grace. If the will 
consents, the whole man goes Godward without 
resistance ; if the will refuses to yield, all effort 
is fruitless. 

The seeker may find that the greatest obstruc- 
tion to faith is the smallest object of desire. 
Many a soul has been kept out of the kingdom 
by a mere trifle — an ornament on their person, 
a practice, the wrong of which they are not able 



230 SCEIPTUBAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

to fully discover. But it must be remembered 
that it is the doubtful thing that keeps us back. 
If we believe a practice to be sinful, we must 
yield it at once, or give up all hope of being 
saved. But if a practice be a doubtful one, it is 
the doubt that blocks our wheels. The doubt- 
ful practice must be abandoned, because it is 
doubtful. He that doubts the propriety of a 
given practice, and yet indulges in it, is guilty 
of doing what he is assured may be wrong ; and 
no wonder the apostle says, " He that doubteth," 
the rightfulness of the act, " is damned/' or, 
condemned. " "Whatsoever is not of faith," is 
not fully accredited as right, " is sin." 

Eev. D. W. C. Huntington, D.D., in writing 
on the subject of consecration, inquires : 

" Have you been hindered by the devil's lions ? 
(1) ' You cannot keep such high vows. Better 
promise a little and see if you can keep that.' 
It would be easier to make a world with God 
to help, than to do the simplest thing without 
Him. A war against all sin is the least thing a 
Christian can undertake. (2) ' I do not know 
what God may ask of me.' And you need not 
to know ; you know He is God, that is enough. 
(3) ' But I shall be singular,' So you will. The 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 231 

majority of the world is still unchristian. Such 
singularity as is not mechanical, nor put on to 
cover spiritual pride, but the result of loving 
and serving God in an ungodly world, we must 
all accept. The quicker the better." — Northern 
Christian Advocate. 

We conclude our remarks on the subject of 
consecration with the following beautiful lines : 

" Take my life and let it be 
Consecrated Lord to Thee ; 
Take my hands and let them move 
At the impulse of Thy love. 

Take my feet and let them be 
Swift and beautiful for Thee ; 
Take my voice and let me sing 
Always, ever, for my King. 

Take my silver and my gold — 
Not a mite would I withhold ; 
Take my moments and my days, 
Let them flow in ceaseless praise. 

Take my will and make it Thine ; 
It shall be no longer mine ; 
Take my heart, it is Thine own, 
It shall be Thy royal throne 

Take my love, my Lord, I pour 
At Thy feet its treasure-store ; 
Take myself, and I will be 
Ever, only, all for Thee. 



232 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

Wash me in the Saviour's precious blood, 
Cleanse me in its purifying flood, 
Lord, 1 give to Thee my life, and all, to be 
Thine, henceforth, eternally. " 

5. Implicit, momentary trust in the merits of 
Christ. 

All our devotement, or consecration, is as 
nothing, if implicit faith is wanting. Faith 
alone is the condition of entire sanctification, 
and the only condition. " Every man when he 
believes is sanctified/' says Mr. Wesley. 

What am I to believe ? 

1. I must believe that entire sanctification is 
a blessing promised in the Holy Scriptures, and 
to be enjoyed in this life. 

It is not enough that I believe the doctrine 
taught in the Scriptures, and promised to mortals 
some time, it may be at death ; but I must believe 
it is for me, here and now. Unless this is a settled 
conviction of the soul, all my efforts are fruitless. 

2. I must believe that God, for Christ's sake, 
is willing, able and ready to save us now. On 
His part all is done. The atonement is com- 
plete, the provisions ample, and He only waits 
for a heart willing to receive. He is more 
anxious to save us than we are to be saved. 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 233 

Let us pause at this point and ask ourselves 
the questions : 

1. Have I a tolerably clear understanding of 
the holiness I now seek' ? 

2. Do I feel my need of holiness of heart, to 
rid me of my felt and mourned depravity, or do 
I seek it that I may be more happy ? 

3. Am I anxious to obtain this blessing ; and 
does my desire for it exceed my desire for any 
earthly good ? 

4. Do I believe that God is able to give me a 
pure heart now ? or, am I looking for it at some 
future time ? 

5. Do I believe that God is willing to sanctify 
me wholly, and to do it now ? 

6. Do I now commit my soul into His hands 
to be saved ; and to be saved this moment ? 

We know of no directions more simple and 
more wise, than those given by Mr. Wesley. 

"But what is that faith whereby we are 
sanctified, saved from sin, and perfected in love ? 
This faith is a Divine evidence or conviction : — 

1. " That God hath promised this sanctifica- 
tion in the Holy Scriptures. 

2. " It is a Divine evidence or conviction that 
what God hath promised He is able to perform. 



234 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

3. " It is a Divine evidence and conviction 
that He is able and willing to do it now. 

4. u To this confidence that God is able and 
willing to sanctify us now, there needs to be 
added one thing more — a Divine evidence and 
conviction that He doeth it. 

i{ In that hour it is done ; God says to the in- 
most soul, ' According to thy faith be it done 
unto thee/ Then the soul is pure from every 
spot of sin ; is clean from all unrighteousness/' 

It is contended that we are not required to 
believe that He doeth it, but only that He will 
do it. It must not be a faith that we receive, 
but that we shall receive. 

Just at this point, we are convinced that 
Bishop Foster, while he would guard against an 
error, on the one hand, does not avoid an equally 
fatal error on the other. He says, " It is well, 
nay, it is indispensable, to make an entire sur- 
render of all to God ; and when this is done, 
God will acknowledge it by sending the witness 
of His acceptance ; but let no one, at his peril, 
conclude that he has made this surrender, and is 
consequently sanctified, without the requisite 
witness ; he will only deceive himself, and receive 
no benefit. His faith, however strong, being 



HOLINESS— HOW OBTAINED. 235 

false, will do him no good." — Christian Purity, 
p. 206. 

The error here is in the item we have itali- 
cized. No man can believe for full salvation, un- 
til he has made a full surrender of himself to 
God. This full surrender is consecration — which 
the Bishop says " is not sanctification, it is a 
part of it. Consecration is your work, God 
giving the requisite grace." (p. 204.) Now if 
I cannot " conclude that I have made this sur- 
render," I cannot believe for the accomplishment 
of the work. Any uncertainty as to the full 
surrender of the soul, blocks faith at every step. 

There are three steps in this process, at only 
one of which can faith rest, — has been, — is, — 
will be. We are not to believe it has been done, 
as a condition of its being done. Nor are we 
to believe it will be done, without determining 
when, as a condition of its being done. But we 
are to believe it is done, not as a completed work, 
for that would throw it back antecedent to faith ; 
nor as a work to be subsequently wrought, for 
that would separate it from faith upon which it 
is conditioned ; but that it is done when, and in 
the instant, I believe, and consequently, insepa- 
rable from my faith. 



236 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

We insist that a soul may believe that he has 
"made the surrender/' before he receives the 
witness of the Spirit that he is sanctified. If 
he does not believe that he has made the sur- 
render, he cannot believe that Grod accepts him 
fully. 

We insist further, that a soul does not " de- 
ceive himself," who believes the work is wrought 
in him before he has the witness of the Spirit 
that the work is done. Faith is the condition 
on which the blessing is received, while the wit- 
ness of the Spirit is the knowledge which God 
conveys to the mind that the work has been 
wrought. The error here is in confounding faith 
with knowledge. We may believe the work 
done, without knowing it done. 

There is no doctrine more clearly taught by 
Mr. Wesley, than that a soul must constantly 
believe the work of sanctification complete, 
though he may not always have the witness of 
the Spirit. Speaking of the hour of temptation 
he says, " At such times there is absolute need 
of that witness, without which the work of 
sanctification not only could not be discerned, 
but could not longer subsist." But says 
one ; " I have no witness that I am saved from 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED, 237 

sin. And yet I have no doubt of it." " Very 
well/' responds Mr. Wesley, "as long as you 
have no doubt, it is enough ; when you have, 
you will need that witness/' — ( Works, vol. vi. 
516.) 

But Bishop Foster would say to all such, 
" Until the witness comes, we will not say we 
are entirely sanctified ; we will not even believe 
we are ; we will look to be, and wait in expec- 
tation until we are, and then we will rest in 
God." (p. 206.) 

We might with propriety say, "Until the 
witness comes, we will not say, we know we are 
sanctified ;" but to say, " we will not believe we 
are," is to shoot wide of the mark. 

" As when you reckon with your creditor or 
with your host," says Mr. Fletcher, . " and as 
when you have paid all, you reckon .yourselves 
free, so now reckon with God. Jesus has paid 
all ; and He hath paid for thee — hath purchased 
thy pardon and holiness. Therefore it is now 
God's command, 'Beckon thyself dead unto 
sin ; ' and thou art alive unto God from this 
hour. 0, begin, begin to reckon now, fear not ; 
believe, believe, believe, and continue to believe 
every moment. So shalt thou continue free; 



238 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

for it is retained, as it is received by faith 
alone." 

How different is this from saying, " We will 
not even believe we are saved/' " until the wit- 
ness comes/' when the witness comes as the re- 
sult of receiving 7 and the receiving comes as the 
result of believing. 

The language of Jesus is, ""What things so- 
ever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye re- 
ceive them, and ye shall have them." — Mark 
xi. 24. 

The word translated in this verse, " ye re- 
ceive," is in the present tense, and the rendering 
of our English version is precisely correct. 
Numerous efforts have been made to change the 
tense of this verse, but it stands as the word of 
Jesus, who knew whereof He affirmed. Let 
others attempt to mend the theology of Jesus if 
they will, but we choose to abide by it as it 
stands in the divine Record. 

Mr. Fletcher, in referring to this verse, says, 
" The l Credo quod habes et habes ' — believe you 
have it, and you have it — is not very different 
from those words of Christ, ' What things so- 
ever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye 
receive them and ye shall have them. 7 The 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 239 

humble reason of the believer and the irrational 
presumption of the enthusiast, draw this doc- 
trine to the right hand or to the left. But to 
split the hair — here lies the difficulty." — Works, 
vol. iv., p. 317. Believe you have it and you 
have it, is one extreme. Believe you will re- 
ceive, and you shall have, is another extreme. 
And yet both are not very far from the truth, 
which is, believe that ye receive and ye shall 
have. But this difference, small as it is, is 
great enough to produce a failure at every step. 
The first asks us to believe a falsehood, — believe 
we have what we have not. The second leaves 
our faith perfectly indefinite, — believe we shall 
receive some time in the future. There is a 
vast difference between believing we have a 
thing, and believing that we receive it. The 
one is believing in the blessing as an accom- 
plished fact. The other is believing it, as being 
accomplished now. To believe you will receive, 
is to make a chasm between the act of faith and 
the bestowment of the blessing ; as though we 
must make a full consecration, and believe that 
God will accept the sacrifice, the acceptance 
being indefinitely future to the act of faith. 
Now, according to the experience of thou- 



240 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

sands, the process seems to be this : The Chris- 
tian seeking entire sanctification believes intel- 
lectually that entire conformity to the will of 
God, as to conduct and words, as to thoughts 
and affections, is his privilege and duty. He 
believes intellectually in the adaptation of the 
provisions which God has made, and in the truth 
of God's promise in this regard. Conscious of 
impurity within, he earnestly desires to be 
cleansed from its least remains. Considering the 
prayer of the apostle, " the very God of peace 
sanctify you wholly ?' and the assurance, " who 
also will do it ;" and " the blood of Jesus Christ, 
His Son, cleanseth from all sin;" and assured 
in his consciousness that he has brought his 
sacrifice to the altar and bound it there ; that 
he has made a full surrender, an unreserved 
consecration, with faith exercised through 
divinely-given power, (which power is requisite 
to the exercise of faith,) he says, " I now give 
all. Thou hast promised to receive the gift. 
Thou dost now receive. The blood of Christ 
cleanses now." And in that moment, in view 
of the condition fulfilled, viz., his implicit faith 
in the promise and the atonement, the Holy 
Spirit does the work, and he is in that moment 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 241 

sanctified in soul, and body, and spirit. His 
faith then rests on the truth of God, and is not 
a belief that we receive that we may receive, 
but, as Mr. Wesley expresses it, " a divine evi- 
dence and conviction that he doeth it/* it being 
always understood — and this is the point to be 
guarded — that it is faith for a present blessing ; 
but the blessing is conditioned on faith, and is 
conferred at the very instant the faith is exer- 
cised. 

We are not saved because we have consecrated 
all to God ; but having made such a consecration 
we are to believe that it is accepted, and we are 
received for Christ's sake. I know not what 
else faith has to do. It is not enough that the 
gift touch the altar, it must be placed there in 
faith that " the altar sanctifieth the gift 17 Un- 
belief may cut off the virtue of the altar, and 
the sacrifice may remain untouched by fire. 
Having placed our gift on the altar, we are au- 
thorized to believe that God receives us accord- 
ing to His promise. We then receive through 
that very faith we are graciously assisted to ex- 
ercise. 

u But can I believe before I have the witness 
that the work is accomplished ?" 
16 



242 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

We have always found it difficult to under- 
stand how a soul could believe for full salvation 
after it is conscious that the work is done. "We 
have always believed that entire sanctification is 
a blessing conditioned on faith ; and that the 
faith upon which it is conditioned, must be ex- 
ercised, before the blessing is received. But ac- 
cording to the fallacy which we are exposing, the 
blessing is first received, and the faith, upon 
which it is conditioned, is exercised afterwards. 

If I cannot believe for entire sanctification 
until I am conscious of its presence in my heart, 
I can never believe for it; for the evidence of its 
possession must be subsequent to its reception, 
unless the evidence comes first and the blessing 
afterward. 

The Divine order is, first believe, then receive, 
then know. But if the dogma we oppose be 
correct, it is, the evidence first, the blessing 
next, and the faith, upon which it is conditioned, 
last. This entirely upsets the Divine order, 
and no fruit is brought to perfection. 

With these explanations we are prepared to 
say to all seeking the grace of perfect love ; 

1. Do not trust in feelings. Nothing is more 
uncertain. Feeling is not faith, nor is it salva- 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 243 

tion, nor yet the condition of salvation. It is 
only the fruit of salvation, or what comes of 
salvation. Faith may be exercised and salva- 
tion secured in the absence of any remarkable 
feeling. 

We do not ignore feeling. We shall have it ; 
but we should not be troubled if it does not 
come at the moment. 

2. Let us fix our faith on the promise of the 
everlasting Grod. 

" Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, 
Aiid looks to that alone ; 
Laughs at impossibilities, 
And cries, It shall be done ! " 

Let us not doubt God in the absence of great 
emotion, but let us trust Him, until He " opens 
in our hearts a little heaven." 

3. Does the reader desire entire sanctification 
at whatever cost ? You have long desired it, 
and often prayed for it ; and done all you knew 
to obtain it. 

This is all well. You may have put forth as 
much physical effort as is needful, for " bodily 
exercise profiteth little." You have doubtless 
prayed as much and as earnestly as is necessary. 
Praying will not save you. Your salvation is 



244 SCEIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

not conditioned on prayer, or " bodily exercise. ,, 
Do you fully believe in full salvation attainable 
in this life ? Do you believe it is your duty and 
your privilege to enjoy it now, just as you 
are ? See that these points are all well settled ; 
for this being saved now, and as you are, are 
points not so easily gained. 

Are you willing to do all the will of God, to 
the end of life ? Are you willing, if God calls 
you to it, to be singular, to be sneered at as one 
professing holiness ? These are tests which cru- 
cify nature. 

Have you made a full, and entire consecration 
of all to God — the body with all its members, 
the soul with all its powers — property, to be 
used for God's glory and as He requires ? 

In fine, are family, worldly interests, health, 
life, " talent, time and voice," all a free-will offer- 
ing to God — not for a day, but for the whole of 
life ? Are you assured that it has been done ? 
If so, you are not far from the kingdom of God. 

If you have given all to God, a " living sacri- 
fice," it is your right to claim the promise, — " I 
will receive you." You have the right to believe 
that the promise is now fulfilled in you, and that 
He now saves you. Christ, remember, is your 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 245 

altar ; and if your sacrifice is complete, " the 
altar sanctifieth the gift." Whatsoever thus 
■f toucheth the altar is holy." We repeat : If 
your gift is perfect, if your sacrifice is complete, 
if your consecration is not wanting at any point, 
the grace of entire sanctification must be given, 
here and now. We are not able to see how 
it can be otherwise. God cannot deny Himself. 
He has promised, and must fulfil it. 

But you have no feeling. " By grace are ye 
saved through faith" not feeling. But you have 
feeling. You may not have as much as you 
desire, or as you have been expecting ; but you 
will not deny that you have feeling. 

Which is the most reliable, the immutable 
promise of God, or your uncertain emotions? 
Feeling may mislead you, but God's promise 
never. In due time you will have all the feeling 
you need, but for the present, believe the promise. 

Will you then, at this moment, just as you are, 
without regard to your emotions, in child-like 
simplicity, reckon yourself dead unto sin and 
alive unto God ? Can you not say, with your 
faith resting on the promise — " All is the Lord's ! 
I am His, now and for ever T } Saying this in 
faith, you have the right to look up to Him who 



246 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

is mighty to savo ; and say, " Thou hast washed 
away all my sins ; I am Thine forever. I am 
dead ; but it is unto sin. I am alive ! but it is 
unto God. I glory ! but it is in the Cross." 

0, cast yourself into this sea of infinite love ; 
you need not, you will not sink. Jesus comes 
walking on the water to lift up your sinking 
soul. He is near thee ; believe it ! He saves 
now ; only believe it. Believe as you are. Be- 
lieve now, and yours is the bliss of perfect love. 

In the promises I trust ; 

In the cleansing blood confide ; 
1 am prostrate in the dust, 

I with Christ am crucified. 

Jesus comes ! He fills my soul ! 

Perfected in love I am, 
I am every whit made whole, 

Glory, glory to the Lamb. 

CAUSES OF FAILURE. 

We have read and re-read the following re- 
marks of Rev. Wm. Taylor, as found in that 
excellent work, u Infancy and Manhood" and 
cannot resist the conviction that they should 
have the widest circulation possible, that they 
may help the thousands who are contending with 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 247 

the same difficulties. He very justly represents 
these struggling, defeated ones, as tl going about 
to establish their own righteousness/ 7 not having 
" submitted themselves unto the righteousness 
of God," or God's righteous method of saving 
them by faith alone, and not by the works of the 
law. We have considerably abridged the re- 
marks, but have retained the substance. 

How often have you approached the altar of 
consecration with a determination to be holy ! 
You wept at the mercy- seat of God, confessed 
your need of heart purity, mourned over your 
past unfaithfulness, presented your sacrifice to 
God, and renewed your covenant. Tou arranged 
in your own mind a beautiful programme for 
holy living — To pray in your family morning 
and evening, to pray in your closet three times 
per day, to attend all the stated means of grace, 
visit the sick, give liberally to charitable objects, 
and in short discharge every duty of Christian 
life ; and you felt a considerable degree of com- 
fort in having renewed your covenant — quite an 
inflation of hope, anticipating the good time 
coming, when you shall have performed all these 
good things. You retired with buoyant hope 
and sincere desire to carry out your pious pur-- 



248 SCKIPTUBAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

poses to perfection, and you did the praying and 
all the other good things you promised, so far as 
the outward acts were concerned, but as for the 
development and perfection of the spiritual life 
within, you just missed it. One fortnight proved 
to you that in regard to the inner life — the es- 
sential thing in your experience — you had not 
been any better, nor done any better, than before 
your special consecration. Hope was deferred, 
your heart became very sick, and you scarcely 
knew what next to do. But upon a careful ex- 
amination, you thought you found out the ground 
of your failure — " Not sufficiently watchful, have 
not carefully guarded those weak points in my 
experience — those peculiar besetments which I 
suffer at every unguarded gap." With this. dis- 
covery your flagging hopes revived, and you 
were encouraged to try it again. Then you ap- 
proached the altar of God with greater solemn- 
ity and self-abasement. You mourned, and 
wept, and confessed your repeated failures, sub- 
mitted your helpless soul to God, and again re- 
newed your covenant, and bound yourself most 
solemnly in a vow, for God to live and for God 
to die. Some write out their vows and put them 
into their Bibles, as reminders of their solemn 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 249 

engagements with God. Thus many sincere 
persons spend years in earnest struggling, and 
remain but dwarfs in religion. They have a 
great deal of motion without progression, like a 
door on its hinges. 

Now, what is the matter ? There is some- 
thing wrong. 

It cannot be that you are not sincere, for I am 
specially addressing sincere persons. 

Not because of any defect in the genuineness 
of your conversion to God, in the first place, for 
I am addressing such as were truly pardoned, 
and adopted into the family of God. 

Not that you have wilfully departed from the 
Lord, for I am not addressing such. I have 
been describing the experience of persons who 
were "justified by faith, and obtained peace with 
God," and who still have a measure of saving 
faith, and some degree of spiritual development, 
but whose faith is sadly trammeled in its exercise, 
and defeated in its grand end of full salvation 
firom all sin, including specially the sin of un- 
belief, and the " purging of the conscience from 
dead works." 

Now, my dear friend, it cannot be the will of 
our heavenly Father that any sincere soul should 



250 SCRIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

struggle so hard, and so long, as many have done, 
with so little to show for it. 

How shall we be able to detect the error 
which thus trammels our faith, and defeats its 
grand purposes? I can give you, my dear 
reader, the theory of truth necessary for its de- 
tection, but God, the Holy Sanctifier, alone, can 
give you the light, by which you may come to 
Jesus and have it removed. That He will gladly 
do, provided you consent to be holy without any 
"ifs or buts/' or stipulations of your own. 

Well, just at the altar of consecration, where 
you so often prayed, confessed, consecrated your- 
self, and renewed your covenant, stood your Al- 
mighty Saviour, waiting to impart salvation, free 
and full, to your aching heart ; but at the mo- 
ment of your entire submission, when you should 
have believed, what did you do? Why, you 
renewed your covenant, which directed your 
longing eyes away from Jesus to a future fulfil- 
ment of your vows ; and it was implied in your 
mind, " then I will be brought into the sweet 
union with God I so much desire." You sub- 
stituted a renewed covenant for present believing, 
nay, for a present Saviour ; you arose and went 
away, and left Jesus " standing there at the door 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 251 

knocking" for admission. Instead of opening 
the door to admit Him in all the fullness of His 
saving power, without which it was impossible 
for you to do better, with a pious vow in your 
mouth you retired through a back way, to your 
own dreary work, as weak as before. How could 
you do any better, when you missed connection 
with the source of light and life ? If you wish 
to irrigate an orchard of fruit trees, your beauti- 
ful ditches of good works will do no good unless 
you lift the flood-gate and turn on the water. 
At that important point of submission, to be sure, 
you ignored the record of your past works, pro- 
nounced them filthy rags, and threw them away, 
but what then did you do ? You gravely pro- 
mised the Lord some more of the same sort, or 
as you believed an improved article. You told 
the Lord you certainly would do better next 
time, but a fortnight's experience proved to you 
that they were of the same sort precisely, and 
not a bit better than the old stock. Then the 
old u accuser of the brethren," came in upon you 
like a flood, and you said to yourself, " dear me, 
what shall I do ? I thought I had gotten such 
a start in the way of holiness that I never would 
get back here again! But here I am in the 



252 SCRIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

same old formal track, subject to the same petty- 
annoyances, doubts, and fears." 

0, how glad I was when the Lord, in mercy, 
revealed to my heart this insidious practical error 
of " going about." It is the more difficult of 
detection because everything embraced in those 
vows and covenants is a good thing, and how 
such a good thing, or combination of good things, 
can involve such a radical error, sapping the very 
foundations of our religious experience, is the 
problem to be solved. The desire that led to 
these vows is all right, for God the Spirit 
wrought it in your heart; and vows and cove- 
nants are right, in so far as they are a means of 
bringing you to a present perfect surrender to 
God, and a present acceptance of Jesus, as your 
present perfect Saviour. But as you are run- 
ning on the Gospel track, under the pressure of 
this heaven-wrought desire, into the depot of full 
salvation, look out there ! just at the entrance 
of the depot, Satan adjusts a very ingenious 
"switch," and if you are not careful, you will be 
caught on it, and carried off the direct and only 
track, leading into this glorious depot, on to the 
old circuitous Jewish track of going " about to 
establish your own righteousness, instead of sub- 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 253 



mitting yourself to the righteousness of God;" 
and round and round you will go, and wonder 
why you do not get in. — (( Almost in," you say 
to yourself. " I can see in. Surely I will get in 
soon." Surely you never will get in on that 
track. It don't lead in at all. It is the wrong 
road. I spent several years on that road, and 
have thoroughly threaded upon my knees this 
dark labyrinth of legal complications, and am, 
hence, from experience, somewhat prepared to 
give advice to my young friends, and profoundly 
to sympathize with them in their struggles. 

When I got light on this subject I changed the 
order of the arrangement at once. 

I said, " Lord I have been very unfaithful, 
and I am very sorry " — not that I had yielded 
to known sin. I had been struggling to be holy 
from the night I was converted to God, and had 
been preserved from any wilful departures from 
God, — " I have tried a hundred times to be holy, 
and failed every time. I am very sorry, but, 
God, I have no confidence in the flesh, or in 
any efforts of my own. I have tried, and tried, 
till my heart is sick. I know I will never be any 
better, nor do any better, unless my heart is 
made better. However much I may desire it, 



254 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

and however sincerely I may try, I am sure 
I can never be any better than I have been, 
or do any better than I have done, unless re- 
newed in the spirit of my mind." I was indeed 
stripped of all hope from anything I had done, 
or could do. Not a peg in all the future of my 
life, no more than the past, on which to hang a 
hope, or furnish ground for a postponement. 
Then the crucifixion of the flesh, with its falla- 
cious hopes and plans of reformation, dressed up 
in the most pious phraseology as they are, was 
fully accomplished. My conscience was purged 
of dead works, and I was let down into the vale 
of self-abasement and self-despair, and down in that 
vale of self-conscious impotency my feet rested 
firmly on the " rock of ages cleft for me/' and 
Jesus " was made of God unto me wisdom, and 
righteousness, and sanctification." Then I 
learned practically, what I had all through be- 
lieved as a theory, that as in justification by 
faith, so in the entire sanctification of the heart, 
it was " not by works of righteousness which 
we have done, but according to his mercy he 
saved us, by the washing of regeneration and 
renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on 
us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." 



HOLINESS — HOW OBTAINED. 255 

If so, why not now, or the very moment the 
Holy Spirit reveals the inherent and accumulated 
corruptions of our nature, and the plague of un- 
belief in the heart ? 

. In this experience of full salvation from sin, 
unbelief, and dead works, I did not attain to the 
beatific altitude of Mount Nebo, and exult in 
visions of heavenly glory, but received a new 
baptism of legal fire, that consumed those dead 
works and fallacious hopes ; and in utter self- 
conscious helplessness I learned to cling to Jesus 
in all the simplicity of a child. No longer say- 
ing, with self-confident Peter, " Though all deny 
thee, yet will not I. Though I die with thee, 
yet will I not deny thee ; " but rather, " Every 
moment, Lord, I need the merit of thy death." 
If left to myself for one moment, that very mo- 
ment I will sin against thee. Not that I have 
any sympathy with sin. I abhor it more than 
death, but self-confidence is abnegated. I know 
that such is the helplessness of human nature in 
this struggle, and such the number and potency 
of the evil influences that surround me, that 
nothing short of the almighty power of Jesus 
can keep my heart from sinning. 

When I was thus crucified with Christ in the 



256 SCKIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

full and final destruction of self-dependence, I 
learned the happy art of living by faith in the 
Son of God, and then the good things embraced 
in my oft-repeated vows and covenants, I secure 
of course as the legitimate fruit of a present 
entire consecration to God, steadily maintained 
as a fact, and my perfect confidence in God's 
provisions and promises as immutable facts, and 
my present acceptance of Christ for all that he 
hath engaged to do for me ; never for a moment 
to question whether he will do this or that, 
which is embraced in his covenant engagement, 
but gratefully accepting his facts with unwaver- 
ing confidence, momently " live by faith in the 
Son of God." He that " thus believeth shall 
never be confounded." I have thus been en- 
abled, through extraordinary vicissitudes and 
trials, to walk by faith for over twenty years. 
Never since I was thus " crucified " and " purged 
from dead works " have I made any vows per- 
taining to the inner life, and looking to a future 
fulfilment, pp. 66-77. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

HOLINESS. — EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 

T TOW may we know that we are entirely 
-■ — *- sanctified, and made perfect in love ? 

In view of the great variety in Christian ex- 
perience, it is very difficult to so present the 
subject as to meet every case. Many are clearly 
conscious of having reached the great rock of 
perfect salvation, but they have no marked joy, 
no special intellectual excitement. Others are 
filled with rapture — are swallowed up in the 
ocean of God's love, and enjoy the luxury of 
having all its waves and billows roll over them. 
While others take the blessing by faith. They 
give themselves to God, and feel they are safe 
in His hands. Summer has come to the soul ; 
and the evidence of the accomplished work is 
learned by contrasting their feelings with what 
they were before. Others are so filled with 
the brightness of the Divine glory, that lan- 
guage utterly fails to describe it. 

There are some evidences which are common 
17 257 



258 SCRIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

to all, and are enjoyed by all who enter into this 
rest of faith. 

1. There is a consciousness of perfect trust. 

This trust is for heart purity. It is not a 
matter to be explained, but to be done and known. 
It is not a trust that the work has been finished, 
but a trust in Christ that He does the work now. 
There is the consciousness that we do believe — 
or what we call the " assurance of faith." 

Before this change was wrought, it was very 
difficult to believe. We staggered at the mag- 
nitude of the promises, and were not " strong in 
the faith, giving glory to God." But now we 
feel no disposition to doubt. It seems a great 
sin to doubt a single promise. There may be no 
overwhelming emotion, but faith is all- conquer- 
ing, and rests on Jesus Christ the Lord. If 
asked, " how we feel ;" the response is, " I am 
trusting." " Trusting what ?" " Trusting that 
He doeth it." 

It is asked, u may I not doubt as to whether 
I do believe ? May I not be deceived ?" 

To doubt whether we believe, is not to believe. 
"We cannot doubt and believe at the same time 
for a blessing conditioned solely on faith. We 
may believe in the absence of great emotion, 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 259 

but we cannot believe and doubt that we believe 
at the same time. Faith rests on the promise 
alone, and sees nothing but the promise ; and the 
sanctified heart is conscious of the exercise of 
such faith. 

It is not, I am trying to believe ; or, I hope I 
believe; but, I believe. I cannot tell how or 
why, only I am commanded to do it, and I do 
it. I am conscious that I do it. I walk about 
assured that I believe. 

2. There is the direct witness of the Spirit. 

It is generally conceded that it is very difficult 
to explain the mode of the Spirit's witness, either 
in justification, or sanctification. While He ut- 
ters no audible words, and the ear hears no sound, 
He does give a clear, unmistakable testimony, 
addressed to human consciousness, that the work 
is complete — that " the blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth from all sin." 

" The method of the Divine operation," says 
Dr. Upham, " appears to be one of the secret 
things which are hidden with God. Accordingly, 
the Holy Spirit, so far as the method or manner 
of His influence is concerned, operates differently 
in different cases." 

It is a clear testimony, or witness, to a fact 



260 SCKIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

which has transpired within the human soul. It 
is a truthful statement, for He is " the Spirit of 
truth." 

" When this testimony is given, the clearness 
and strength of Divine light so fully and power- 
fully penetrates every channel of the heart, as 
to lay open to the mental vision the entire moral 
aspect, and impress the whole inner man with : 
the invincible persuasion that the reign of grace 
is complete. And though it is possible for one 
who has never had this testimony to substitute 
for it some strong, rapturous emotion, or some 
sudden and overwhelming influence of the Spirit, 
yet when this divine witness is received, it will 
be found to be unlike anything else ; whether 
transports of joy, flights of imagination, or sus- 
pensions of physical and animal powers. Nor 
can any agency, human, angelic, or infernal, 
fabricate a counterfeit that can escape instant 
detection by one who has known this witness of 
the Spirit." 

" But how shall one discriminate between the 
witness of the Spirit in justification and entire 
sanctification ? The Spirit is given when we are 
justified; what more may we expect when we 
fully attain — when holiness is brought in ? This 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 261 

is a plain case. The difference of the Spirit's 
witness in the work of justification and entire 
sanctification is not in the manner, so much as 
the thing which is witnessed to. It is the same 
Spirit; the phenomena are the same, but the 
testimony is to different facts, and consequently 
differs. When one is pardoned, the testimony 
is to precisely that fact, that he is pardoned, 
made alive to God; but it is not that he is 
entirely sanctified. The Spirit, indeed, along 
with His witness to pardon, clearly indicates to 
the soul — remaining sin. In the immediate joy 
of its first testimony this may not be so, but it 
is so, permanently, afterward, when that excite- 
ment subsides. Not only does the believer know 
his remaining sin, by his own consciousness of it, 
but he is likewise conscious of the reproving of 
the Divine Spirit on account of it, and of His 
urgings and promptings to a more complete sal- 
vation. Its witness of pardon co-exists with 
its reproofs and urgings, and co-exists consciously 
in the really Christian soul. It is thus a wit- 
ness of the precise condition of the soul — both 
of its attainment and want. When he is entirely 
sanctified, the same Spirit bears witness again, 
just as He did before; but. now it is to another 



262 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

fact, not that he is pardoned, but that he is en- 
tirely sanctified And if the former change was 
known to his own consciousness, so also will this 
latter be. Thus the Spirit witnesses with our 
spirit to our religious state whatever it may be, 
whether of justification merely or entire sancti- 
fication. 

" We can see no more difficulty in supposing 
the Divine Spirit to give a discriminating testi- 
mony, than in conceiving of it as witnessing at 
all. If He may convey the attestation of pardon, 
He may also of purification. If of one experi- 
ence, certainly of the other. Nor can it be 
shown that His witness in the one case is either 
more comprehensible or more important than in 
the other." — Christian Purity, pp. 229, 230. 

An objection to this doctrine has been inter- 
posed here. It is claimed that purity of heart 
is a quiescent state — a state of rest, of repose, 
and consequently cannot be known, as neither 
consciousness nor the Divine Spirit can witness 
to any but to an active state. 

This is regarded as one of the strongest ob- 
jections to the doctrine of the witness of the 
Spirit; and, in fact, by many, is regarded as 
settling the question beyond all controversy. 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 263 

Notwithstanding this, thousands aver that they 
have the witness of the Spirit that they have 
been made pure. 

This objection is based upon two assumptions: 
First, that entire sanctification is purely a 
quiescent state; and secondly, that consciousness 
never bears witness to a quiescent, but always 
to an active state. If both these assumptions 
could be proved, the objection would have some 
weight ; but as both are merely assumptions, we 
shall pause a while before we abandon our faith 
in the Word of God and human experience. 

1. We object to this assumption because it 
confounds what should be kept separate, viz. : 
Human consciousness and the witness of the 
Divine Spirit. 

Consciousness is the knowledge of what passes 
in one's own mind. The witness of the Spirit 
is what is communicated to the mind by an agent 
outside of itself. It is what is told it by another 
Spirit. 

We could conceive how consciousness might 
be unable, of its own knowledge, to reveal all 
the deep workings of Grod in the soul, but that 
seeming impossibility is removed when it is re- 
membered that such knowledge is conveyed to 



264 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

our spirit by Him who u searcheth all things, 
even the deep things of God." If my spirit is 
ignorant of the work wrought, God's Spirit is 
not. If I cannot see the bottom, He can. 

Consciousness cognizes the fact of remaining 
depravity, which, up to a given time, gave me 
much trouble. I am no longer conscious of that 
trouble. 

Consciousness testified to the presence of 
unbelief, which prevented sweet communion 
with the Spirit of grace. There is now a con- 
sciousness that this barrier does not interpose to 
hinder such communion. 

Consciousness testified that earthly love ex- 
isted, which prevented me from loving God with 
all my heart. I am equally conscious that it 
does not at present check the flowing of my love 
— " pure, warm, and changeless " — to Him " who 
merits all my love." 

Of these facts I am conscious. I may not, of 
myself, fully understand their deep import ; nor 
need I, for just here the Divine Spirit speaks to 
my spirit — to my consciousness and says, 

"'Tis done, the great transaction's done. 
I am my Lord's, and He is mine." 

Without this distinction, neither the Scriptures 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 265 

nor human experience can be interpreted. "Who 
lias the right to decide what the Divine Spirit 
shall tell me of the hidden work of God in my 
heart? 

2. Our second objection to this assumption is, 
that it does not state- correctly the character of 
the change wrought in entire sanctification. 

The assumption that it is a quiescent state, 
and that only, is altogether gratuitous. 

Entire sanctification is made up of purity, 
perfect love, and power. The state is as properly 
denominated "perfect love," as "heart purity." 
If there were nothing but purity, the objection 
might have more force, but it would not meet 
the case then. But it is " perfect love." There 
is no "perfect love," where there is depravity in 
the soul ; for an impure fountain cannot send 
forth pure water ; nor can a pure fountain send 
forth impure water. If my heart loves God 
perfectly, it is proof positive that it is pure. So 
that perfect love and heart purity are identical. 
If I have the one, I have the other. Love is 
an excited state of the affections ; hence active 
and not quiescent. Of perfect love, conscious- 
ness can take cognizance ; and as perfect love is 
all we mean by perfect holiness, or heart purity, 



266 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

what becomes of the objection based on conscious- 
ness ? 

3. We object to this notion further, because it 
is in direct conflict with the Scriptures. " We 
know that He abideth in us by the Spirit which 
He hath given us." 1 John iii. 24. This abid- 
ing in Him is the same as that which Christ 
taught, and which John recorded. — John xiv. 23. 
" If any man love me, he will keep my words, 
and my Father will love him, and we will come 
unto him and make our abode in him ;" u which 
implies," says Mr. Wesley, in his note on the 
text, " such a large manifestation of the Divine 
presence and love, that the former in justifica- 
tion, is as nothing in comparison of it." To this 
abiding, the Spirit testifies, and His testimony 
constitutes our knowledge. If there were not 
another text in the Bible on the subject, this 
would be conclusive. 

"We have received, not the spirit of the 
world, but the Spirit which is of God ; that we 
may know the things that are freely given us of 
God."— 1 Cor. ii. 12. 

One or two things here deserve attention. 
Believers — all believers— " receive the Spirit of 
God." No Christian is, or need be without it. 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. , 267 

The work of the Spirit is, to make known to 
us the things which God freely gives us : to make 
known the fact of the bestow ment, the nature of 
the gift, and the extent of the blessing. Nothing 
short of this will meet the case. 

The expression, " things that aro freely given 
us of God," shows that He witnesses to more 
than one thing. If the Spirit only witnesses to 
our " adoption," it would be one thing, and not 
" things." He does witness to the one, but He 
also witnesses to the other. 

A new and clean heart is one of God's gifts. 
" A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit 
will I put within you." (Eze. xxxvi. 26.) " Create 
in me a clean heart," was the cry of David. (Psa. 
li. 10.) The apostle assures us that we receive the 
Spirit for the express purpose of making known 
to us these gifts when bestowed. Shall we say 
that God has made a mistake ? that it is not the 
province of the Spirit to give us such informa- 
tion? "Who art thou that replies t against 
God?" 

" He that believeth on the Son of God hath 
the witness in himself." 1 John v. 10. This 
text does not assert that he who believeth unto 
"adoption" "hath the witness in himself;" 



268 . SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

but "he that believe th/' whether it be for "adop- 
tion/' " entire sanctification," or a "pure heart;" 
for the heart is "purified by faith." 

" The enemies of the Wesley an doctrine of 
entire sanctification as a present attainable ex- 
perience/' says Dr. Steele, " are not content with 
befogging the nature of this distinct work of the 
Holy Spirit, they boldly deny its subjective 
proofs, and assert that no man can ever know 
that his heart is thoroughly cleansed. Their 
assertions are two : First ; that consciousness 
cannot bear witness to perfect inward purity, for 
that is a quiescent state, while consciousness 
cognizes only activities. The second declaration 
is, that the Holy Spirit, because He is the ap- 
pointed witness of adoption, cannot disclose to 
the soul the cleansing which He has wrought 
through faith in Jesus' blood. Let us examine 
the first assertion and see whether it does not 
prove altogether too much. Is human free 
agency a quiescent state, or an activity ? If it 
is answered that it is an activity, because the 
mind is always active in its choices, we reply, 
that the will is active in the choices which it 
actually makes. But how is it with the counter 
choice of good or evil, which it does not make 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 269 

at all ? Could the will have made this alternate 
choice ? If so, how do you know ? Are you 
conscious of a potency ? Are you conscious of 
something which never comes forth into actual- 
ity ? Then you must be conscious of a quiescent 
state, the ability to choose between two opposite 
courses. Hence consciousness is the fundamental 
proof of freedom against the theory of necessity. 
Says sturdy Dr. Samuel Johnson, ' I know that 
I am free, and that's the end of it/ Are those 
who are eager to tear down the Wesleyan doc- 
trine of entire sanctification, willing to employ 
an instrument which inevitably subverts the 
whole structure of the Arminian theology, when 
in the hands of a predestinarian ? That this is 
no mere bugbear, see what a damaging use the 
arch-materialist, J. Stuart Mill, made of a pre- 
cisely similar assumption of Sir W. Hamilton. 
Hamilton had declared that consciousness cog- 
nizes only the actual and not the possible. In 
another lecture he shows that the regulative 
faculty or the pure reason, rejects the freedom 
of the will as utterly unthinkable, in accordance 
with his ' philosophy of the conditioned/ which 
is, that reason can admit neither the absolute 
nor the infinite. If the will is free, its acts are 



'270 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

absolute, i. e., uncaused, and on the other hand 
if its acts are caused, there must be an endless 
chain of causation running beyond God's volitions 
into the infinite. Hamilton thus avers that the 
philosophy of the conditioned rejects alike free- 
dom and fate, or the absolute and infinite. 

But Hamilton, nevertheless, endeavors to cling 
to freedom, because it is a dictum of conscious- 
ness. After arraying reason and consciousness 
in a dead-lock on the question of free agency, 
he announces his belief in liberty on the ground 
of consciousness. But the faulty limitation of 
consciousness to the actual, excluding potency, 
did not escape the keen eye of the logical Mill. 
His spear finds this joint in Hamilton's coat of 
mail, and his philosophy is pushed into fatalism. 
For if Hamilton should tell a wilful lie, he never 
could prove from consciousness that he might 
have told the truth, because that ability to speak 
the truth was a quiescent potency, beyond the 
sphere of consciousness. It would be well for 
those who talk so carelessly about consciousness 
failing to cognize a quiescent state, to remember 
that though Mill is dead, he has plenty of follow- 
ers, who wish no better fun than the easy task 
of overturning human freedom and responsibility 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 271 

with the lever that the opponents of entire 
sanctification are now putting into their 
hands. 

" Again let us see what becomes of the doctrine 
of original, or birth sin, if we admit the theory 
that consciousness cognizes only activities. Can 
it be proved that the nature of man is corrupt 
by any appeal to consciousness ? How on earth 
then did Paul, or his convicted legalist, in the 
seventh chapter of Bomans, come to have such a 
piece of information as this, ' I am carnal,' not 
merely do I do wicked deeds, but 1 1 am carnal ' 
in my quiescent state, the fountain of all action ? 
The law could not have been his informant, for 
it prescribes acts saying, ' do this and live/ But 
by some means he becomes possessed of the pain- 
ful fact that there is a being of sin back of the 
doing. Can any one tell us how a man becomes 
convinced that his nature in its quiescent state 
is sinful ? Here is a dilemma — for this fact is 
either revealed by consciousness or by the Holy 
Ghost. If by the former, then consciousness 
grasps a quiescent state; but if by the Holy 
Ghost, then he has testimonies other than the 
fact of adoption and pardon. Which horn do 
you prefer to be gored by ? Or will you abandon 



272 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

the doctrine of inborn sin and become Pelagian, 
and say that Adam's sin consists in doing as 
Adam did ? I for my part advertise the public 
that I prefer this doctrine to the doctrine of in- 
nate depravity so deeply ingrained in my nature, 
below the gaze of consciousness, that I may never, 
with all the light of the Holy Spirit promised in 
the Bible, certainly know that I am not a knave 
at the bottom of my nature. My intelligence 
revolts at the thought that a wise and holy God 
should allow beings to be born under His moral 
government and amenable to His law, with no 
knowledge and no means of knowledge anywhere 
in the universe, of their real character as dis- 
cerned by the all-seeing eye. I am shocked at 
such a conception of God as represents Him as 
holy and hating all the traces and stains of sin, 
yet withholding from man that knowledge of his 
own depravity, which is necessary, to secure his 
co-operation in its complete purification. I must 
either take this view of God, or admit that He 
has made eyes in my soul by which, under the 
illumination of the Spirit, I may gaze to the 
very depths of my sinful nature. If this be true, 
then it follows that consciousness may attest a 
quiescent state, and a believer's intuitions may 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 273 

know by the light of the Holy Ghost that he is 
cleansed from all inbred sin. 

" But the worst of this fallacious philosophy of 
consciousness limited to the sphere of activities, 
remains to be shown. It renders it impossible 
for a man certainly to know that he is in a re- 
generate state. For this is either a quiescent or 
an active state. If it is the former, then it can 
never be cognized by consciousness, and the wit- 
ness of our own spirit, so much talked about by 
Wesley, is mere nonsense. But if the opponent 
says that the regenerate state is active since it 
is the awakening of love within the dead soul, 
then it follows that entire sanctification is an in- 
tensely active state, in which the soul loves God 
to the full extent of its powers. In the Wesleyan 
theology, perfect love is equivalent to perfect 
purity. If a soul can know that all its forces 
are moving God-ward, it can know that self is 
crucified and sin is entirely destroyed. 

Let us now examine the assertion that the 
Holy Spirit is not the witness of complete holi- 
ness. The first corollary from this doctrine is 
this : — there is no such experience in this life. 
For it is the office of the Holy Spirit to hold up 
the mirror of truth to every soul, that He may 
18 



274 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

see His moral visage. Now if, under the illu- 
mination of the Spirit, no one on earth, looking 
into the gospel glass, discovers that he is a sin- 
ner, then it follows that we cannot prove that a 
sinner exists on the foot-stool of God. If no one 
perceive that he is partially sanctified, then 
there is no proof that there is a regenerate 
soul on earth. If no one in Christendom sees 
himself in the gospel glass complete in Christ 
Jesus, then it cannot be proved that there is a 
soul entirely sanctified, that is now in the body. 
It is evident that a denial of the subjective 
proofs amounts to a flat denial of the experience. 
How can a thing be known to exist without its 
proofs ? 

2. Who is he that knows so much about the 
Holy Ghost, that he can confidently set metes 
and bounds to His activities ? How does he come 
by this amazing wisdom ? The Bible does not 
set limits to the agency of the Spirit. So that 
if nothing were said in the Book of Books of a 
positive character on this subject, so broad an 
inference as the denial of the Spirit's testimony 
to entire sanctification, would be wholly unwar- 
ranted." — Advocate of Holiness. 

This is not the witness of God's Spirit to an 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 275 

abstract dogma, but to His own work in the heart 
of a believer. 

This witness is accompanied by a keen sense 
of corruption, or wrong; and it prays most 
earnestly, " The first approach of sin to feel." 
Faith becomes settled and sees no reason for 
doubting one of the promises. A small doubt is 
to such a heart, a great sin. 

Joy is frequently present, but not always; 
while peace is ever abiding. There is a sweet 
sense of the Divine presence- and favor, an un- 
wavering assurance of a complete salvation, and 
a consciousness of a oneness with God. There 
is a complete victory over sin, the soul resting 
firmly upon the rock of ages, fully armed against 
any assault. Love is the element of the soul — 
flowing into some hearts in a steady current, 
while into others, it rushes like a burning fire. 
Christ becomes altogether lovely, and every 
thought is " brought into captivity to His obedi- 
ence." The human will is in subjection to the 
Divine, so that whatever be the call, whether to 
labor, suffer, or die, the heart joyfully responds, 
" Thy will be done." 

We have not only the direct witness, but we 
have what we denominate, the indirect witness. 



276 SCRIPTUBAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

By this we mean, the fruit of the Spirit, such 
as "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
goodness, meekness, temperance, faith." 

These fruits come as the result of the com- 
pleted work. The direct witness is instantaneous, 
the indirect is not. A witness is immediate, a 
fruit is gradual. The one is something said ; the 
other is something developed. Words are in- 
stantaneous ; fruit growing is gradual. 

Those who reject the direct witness of the 
Spirit, reject instantaneous sanctification. 

The fruit of holiness is not put on, it grows. 
It does not require great labor to produce holy 
fruit, if the work is really complete. The fruit 
comes of what has transpired within, and not 
from what is put on from without. No urging 
will induce holy living. Nothing will produce 
that but holiness. If they retain the grace, they 
will live well ; if they do not live well, it is a 
clear evidence that they have not the grace. 

We may judge of the character of the work, 
by noting how the heart behaves itself in the 
presence of temptation. If " Satan cometh " to 
us, as he did to Jesus, " and hath nothing in us ;" 
if he finds " no part dark " for a lurking place ; 
if the light of God shines through every apart- 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 277 

ment of the soul ; if when he urges his tempta- 
tions, he finds that we are " dead indeed unto 
sin ;" it is very clear inferential evidence that 
the strong man has been cast out, and his goods 
have been expelled. 

There has been no little controversy on the 
subject of temptation, and especially the tempta- 
tion of a sanctified Christian. 

It is argued by one class, that all Christians 
are conscious of remaining impurity after con- 
version. They feel the motions of sin, though 
they are not dominant. Evil emotions and de- 
sires exist, to which they do not yield, or consent, 
but in view of which, they are greatly humbled. 

It is insisted by others that these emotions 
and desires, in themselves are not sins, but in- 
firmities, or temptations ; and that sin, proper, 
exists when the will consents. This is true, if 
by sin is meant an act only. But if we admit 
that depravity is sin, then it may exist before 
the act. Infirmities are inseparable to human 
nature. No matter what the degree of grace, 
they still abide with us, and go with us to the 
last. But infirmities are not sins, though it has 
been somewhat difficult for many minds to dis- 
tinguish between them. 



278 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

Infirmities are without remedy so long as we 
are in the body. Sins, by the keeping power 
of Christ, are avoidable through every hour of 
our regenerate life. 

A thousand infirmities are consistent with 
perfect love, but not one sin. 

With regard to the subject of temptation ; it is 
insisted that sin, as an act, begins at the point 
of consent ; but sin, in a proper sense, and in 
one of its scriptural senses, may exist in the in- 
stinctive form of desire, and even back of that, 
in the emotions. 

Temptation is first addressed to the intellect. 
In the case of Eve, it was first a suggestion to 
unbelief — to doubt God's word. The moment 
she yielded intellectually to the suggestion to 
doubt, in that moment and in that doubt she fell. 

Temptation is secondly addressed to the 
emotions, which by doubt have become de- 
praved. So soon as Eve yielded to the intellec- 
tual doubt, in that moment she lusted after the 
forbidden fruit. 

Consent comes after this. Eve's duty was, in 
the instant that Satan said, " Ye shall not surely 
die," to have repelled the temptation. Neglect- 
ing to do it, she fell. Then her own depravity 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 279 

suggested the temptation which led immediately 
to disobedience. 

If the heart is unsanctified, the temptation 
when presented finds a favorable response in 
the emotions, and to some extent in the desires. 
The judgment proclaims the indulgence unlaw- 
ful ; the will refuses to yield, but the affections 
cling to the object presented. The mind does 
not readily disconnect itself from the contempla- 
tion of the subject. It comes up again and 
again, and each time it seems more attractive, 
while the enlightened judgment warns us of the 
peril of indulgence. 

Not so with the heart wholly sanctified. The 
same object maybe presented; but instead of 
the emotions becoming favorably excited, and 
desire felt for the object, or any delight experi- 
enced in its contemplation, there is at once a 
universal rebellion throughout the whole soul. 
There is nothing which gives a favorable re- 
sponse to such presentations. The judgment 
proclaims the indulgence a great sin, and the 
whole emotional nature takes up arms to fight 
the base intruder. This I conceive to be the 
difference between the temptation of a sanctified 
and an unsanctified soul. 



280 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

The temptation may be strong; the whole 
house may be shaken by the foe, and yet it may 
all be from without. If there be no response 
from within, except to oppose ; if there be no 
delight in the contemplation of the object, but 
utter and eternal rejection, loathing the evil, 
then may the heart conclude it has secured the 
purity promised. 

Mr. Wesley makes some practical remarks 
upon this subject which we commend, as possess- 
ing great value. 

" Question. How do you know that you are 
sanctified, — saved from your inbred corruption? 

" Answer. I can know it no otherwise than I 
know that I am justified. 'Hereby know we 
that we are of God/ in either sense, 'by the 
Spirit that He hath given us.' 

" We know it by the witness and by the fruit 
of the Spirit. And, first, by the witness. As 
when we were justified the Spirit bore witness 
with our spirit that our sins were forgiven, so 
when we were sanctified He bore witness that 
they were taken away. Indeed, the witness of 
sanctification is not always clear at first; (as 
neither is that of justification ;) neither is it after- 
wards always the same, but like that of justifi- 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 281 

cation-sometimes stronger and sometimes fainter. 
Yea, and sometimes it is withdrawn. Yet, in 
general, the latter testimony of the Spirit is both 
as clear and as steady as the former. 

" Q. But what need is there of it — seeing 
sanctification is a real change, not relative only, 
like justification ? 

" A. But is the new birth a relative change 
only ? Is not this a real change ? Therefore, 
if we need no witness of our sanctification, 
because it is a real change, for the same reason 
we need none, that we are born of, or are the 
children of God. 

" Q. But does not sanctification shine by its 
own light ? 

u A. And does not the new birth too ? Some- 
times it does ; and so does sanctification ; at 
others it does not. In the hour of temptation 
Satan clouds the work of God, and injects various 
doubts and reasonings, especially in those who 
have either very weak or very strong under- 
standings. At such times there is absolute need 
of that witness, without which the work of 
sanctification not only could not be discerned, 
but could no longer subsist. Were it not for 
this, the soul could not abide in the love of God : 



282 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

much less could it rejoice evermore, and in every- 
thing give thanks. In these circumstances, 
therefore, a direct testimony that we are sancti- 
fied is necessary in the highest degree. 

" But I have no witness that I am saved from 
sin. And yet I have no doubt of it. 

" Very well ; as long as you have no doubt, it 
is enough ; when you have, you will need that 
witness.- 

" There may be intermissions of the direct 
testimony that they are born of God ; but some 
have the testimony both of justification and 
sanctification without any intermission at all ; 
which I presume more might have, did they 
walk humbly and closely with God." — Works, 
vol. vi., pp. 515, 516, 517. 

In seeking the witness of the Spirit, do not 
look for too much. Do not look to be smitten 
to the earth by the power of God, or to be over- 
whelmed with the Divine glory. Do not look for 
supernatural utterances — to have your tongue so 
unloosed that you shall be able to speak with 
great correctness and power, especially without 
thought and without preparation. Look simply 
to be saved from all sin, and filled with pure love 
to God. It may come "with observation," and 



EVIDENCES OF ITS ATTAINMENT. 283 

it may not. You may be wafted to heaven on 
a tempest-tossed ocean, or your soul may be 
swept as with a " rushing mighty wind." But 
it will be just as likely to come in a " still small 
voice," and you be borne upon a sea without 
scarcely a ripple, sped by winds, soft as the 
balmy air of Eden. But He will notify you of 
His presence, and that He has come to stay. The 
evidence of His coming may be delayed for a 
season, to test your faith, but you need not fear, 
as God cannot deny Himself. Faith will become 
victorious, and the soul will find permanent, 
satisfactory rest in Christ. 

tl Come as Thou wilt, I that resign, 
But O, my Jesus, Come." 



CHAPTER XV. 

HOLINESS — HOW RETAINED. 

HHHE question, How may the blessing of lioli- 
-■- ness, or entire sauctification, be retained ? 
is one of great practical importance. It is not 
to be retained without special effort, as there is 
no point of absolute safety until " mortality is 
swallowed up of life," Our enemies are numer- 
ous, powerful and subtle, ready at any moment 
to sow tares when the soul fails to watch or trust. 

Taking it for granted that the heart is pure-— 
that the Spirit attests to the completeness of the 
work, we shall proceed to point out the method 
by which such a blessing may be retained. May 
God direct our mind and pen that we make no 
mistake. 

1. Confession ; by which we mean, an humble, 
prudent, but frank acknowledgment of the work 
wrought in the soul by the power of the Holy 
Ghost 

One writer urges us "not to attach too 
much importance to profession. " We are not 
281 



HOLINESS — HOW RETAINED. 285 

to " fall into the delusion that profession should 
be confidently and often made." " It will savor 
more of pride than grace ; it will influence back- 
ward more than forward." 

Another writer urges, that "it is as well not 
to make such profession, but to live out all the 
grace we can get, be the same more or less." 

We are thankful for any counsel on a subject 
so important ; but as it is a question of experi- 
ence — a question upon which men should speak 
from experience, if they would speak wisely, it 
would be well to inquire whether the persons 
who volunteer such counsel to the professors of 
holiness, have themselves proved the value of 
such instruction ? Have they kept the blessed 
experience by keeping silent on the subject? 
If a person recommends a professedly valuable 
remedy to me, I am anxious to know whether 
it has healed him. If it proves in the end that 
he has faithfully applied it to himself, and it has 
neither cured him nor prevented a relapse of 
the disease, he should not urge it upon me. 
These counsellors should be able to show that 
once they had a clear experience of Christian 
purity; that they have retained it in all its 
blessedness, and in doing so, have very seldom 



286 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

confessed it ; and that they know it can be done. 
Unless this is their experience, what right have 
they to counsel others ? If such a case is on 
record, we have not heard of it. 

The testimony of the life is not sufficient. 
We are to give a H reason of the hope that is 
within us." Our lives, if well ordered, may 
testify to the purity of our morals, and the in- 
nocence of our social dispositions. " It may 
prove you honest, industrious and neighborly ; 
but with all these you may be without regene- 
ration or the love of God. How shall it be 
known why you are honest — whether grace or 
nature, the love of Christ, or the love of praise, 
makes you so ? Your life testify ! Absurd ! 
As well might the blameless conduct of a wit- 
ness at the bar be offered in reply to fifty cross- 
questions. 

"The mode is fixed by God's authority. 
' With the mouth confession is made unto salva- 
tion.' This has been the usual mode from the 
beginning. The Psalmist wished to ' declare - 
what God had done for his soul. He prays, ■ 
Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall 
show forth thy praise.' In harmony with the 
text which connects faith and confession, he 



HOLINESS — HOW BETAINED. 287 

says, 'I believed, and therefore have I spoken/ 
The New Testament saints followed this exam- 
ple ; for the Apostle says, ' "We also believe, and 
therefore speak.' Stephen testified with his ex- 
piring breath, and Paul records his experience 
in its remarkable details — visions, power and 
all — not leaving out his call to preach, nor even 
his visit to the third heavens. It seems he was 
wont to relate all in his sermons, and that be- 
fore kings ; not standing on his own apostolic 
dignity, nor anxious about the violations of 
courtly etiquette." — Bishop Hamline. 

" It is to be feared," says Dr. D. A. Whedon, 
" that special danger lies hid in the idea that we 
are not to openly profess this grace, but to show 
it forth in the life. It is just the idea which 
the devil, the greatest foe of vital godliness, 
would have prevail, — it is the point at which some 
of his fiercest temptations are directed and at which 
scores stumble and fall. This was the point, it 
will be remembered, at which the devoted Fletcher 
fell ; and surely, if man could have maintained 
it and kept silence, he, so full of prayer and faith, 
must have been the one. But why should not 
the same rule hold here as in the case of the 
justified person ? How often have we seen such 



288 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

backslide from not obeying the call to acknow- 
ledge the pardoning love of God. Do they not, 
as a general thing, lose ground, and finally turn 
back to the world and sin ? 

" Many who have been justified, profess it only 
by the life, which is a practical denial, if con- 
fession is to be made with the mouth ; and so, if 
Christ sanctify a soul, and it is confessed not 
with the mouth, but with the life only, it is in 
fact a denial of the Lord Jesus. That is, just so 
far as He has saved us, He must be openly con- 
fessed, or He is denied. The rule, that ' silence 
gives consent/ holds good only on the side of the 
devil." 

" Experience shows that the simple neglect of 
this duty is the point at which loss commences ; 
and if the neglect be continued, the results are 
most disastrous to the soul concerned. The 
living it out before the Church and the world is 
a thing of course ; but while this is done, the 
other must not be left undone. "We have yet to 
find the person who, for any length of time, 
maintained the witness of the Spirit to his entire 
sanctification, who did not talk holiness as well 
as live it." 

" These are facts ; and we may consent to live 



HOLINESS — HOW RETAINED. 289 

it out, and not publicly profess it, (which is, to 
our apprehension, equivalent to proposing to let 
our light shine by putting it under a bushel) 
when they are satisfactorily explained on any 
principles which will not, at the same time, over- 
throw the entire work of the Holy Spirit in the 
human heart/' — Letter in Northern Advocate. 

These are very sensible words, from a very 
sensible man. What makes them more import- 
ant is the fact that they are true — true in the 
experience of all who have either retained or lost 
this grace. 

1. It is objected that definite, and repeated 
confession of heart purity is not authorized by 
the Scriptures. 

The apostles, and early Christians, it is 
claimed, made no such profession. What did 
they declare ? Paul professes, that " The law of 
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him 
free from the law of sin and death." Again he 
says, " I am crucified with Christ : nevertheless, 
I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and 
the life which I now live in the flesh I live by 
the faith of the Son of God. ,, 

To the Thessalonians he says : " Ye are wit- 
nesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and 
19 



290 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

unblamably, we have behaved ourselves among 
you." To the Philippians he says : " Let us, 
therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus 
minded." 

If St. Paul does not profess full salvation in 
these confessions, it would be quite impossible to 
profess it in any language which might be em- 
ployed. 

St. John says : " Herein is our love made 
perfect." Mr. Fletcher insists that St. John 
" professed what our opponents call sinless per- 
fection, and what we call Christian perfection," 
and that Paul " professed his having attained a 
perfection of Christian faith working love." 

God requires a confession of all which He has 
done for us and in us. " With the heart man 
believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth 
confession is made unto salvation." Here faith 
and confession are to correspond. All the former 
claims and receives, the latter must confess or 
proclaim. " That the communication of thy faith 
may become effectual by the acknowledging of 
every good thing which is in you in Christ 
Jesus." (Philemon, 6.) Here, acknowledg- 
ment of every good thing done in us, is to be 
made. "They overcame him (Satan) by the 



HOLINESS — HOW RETAINED. 291 

blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testi- 
mony ; and they loved not their lives unto the 
death." (Rev. xii. 11.) Here the great foe of 
God and man is overcome, by the holy lives and 
faithful testimony of those who knew the cleans- 
ing power of the " blood of the Lamb." 

We are commanded, not only to " hold fast 
the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm 
unto the end," but to " hold fast the profession 
of our faith without wavering." 

" Ye shall be witnesses unto me," says Christ, 
" both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in 
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the 
earth." (Acts i. 8.) This was to be their work, 
"after that the Holy Ghost " had come upon 
them. 

We are impressed that the Scriptures clearly 
and explicitly inculcate, not only the duty, 
but the great value of humble and definite con- 
fession of what Divine grace has wrought in the 
human heart. 

2. It is objected that those who profess entire 
sanctification, or holiness, are no better, if as 
good, as those who make no such profession. 

It is true, doubtless, that many who profess 
to believe in the doctrine of heart purity, are no 



232 SCEIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

nearer it, practically, than many who have no 
faith iij the doctrine. It may be, and doubtless 
is true, that many who profess to enjoy the ex- 
perience, give no more satisfactory evidence of 
possessing it, than some who make no such pro- 
fession. But we cannot see how these facts can 
make against the doctrine or experience. It is 
equally true that many who profess to be justi- 
fied give no more satisfactory evidence of a 
change of heart than those do who make no such 
profession. But shall we reject justification on 
that account ? The argument proves too much. 

"We are not to determine whether, a doctrine 
is true or false by the lives of its professors, 
but by the teaching of its author. "What do the 
Scriptures teach on the subject? 

This objection comes with an ill grace, espe- 
cially from those who claim that entire sanctifica- 
tion is identical with justification. They profess 
to believe that every person who is converted, is 
entirely sanctified; and that unless they are 
sanctified wholly, they are not converted at all. 
That persons holding such views should complain 
of a profession of holiness, is very remarkable. 
If their profession is in harmony with their 
theory, they are the loudest professors of holi- 



HOLINESS — HOW RETAINED. 293 

ness. But when pressed on the subject, they 
shrink from a confession in harmony with their 
faith. 

Rev. W. Taylor relates an incident which oc- 
curred under his early ministry in Baltimore, 
illustrating this, point. He says, il A venerable 
steward of the society in my charge, said to me, 
* Bro. Taylor, I don't believe in this doctrine of 
entire sanctification as a specific attainment sub- 
sequent to conversion. 'When God converted 
my soul, He did it well, and I then received all 
the sanctification I ever expect to get, except 
a gradual growing in grace/ 

" I was then a very unobtrusive, timid young 
man, and would not have had confidence sufficient 
to have advanced any opinion in this venerable 
man's presence adverse to his mind, except in a 
clear case of duty. The good Spirit, perfectly 
knowing my embarrassment, at once gave me ' a 
mouth and wisdom ' which he was * not able to 
gainsay nor resist.' 

"<Bro. T , ' said I, ' Mr. Wesley admits the 

possibility of a person being justified freely and 
sanctified wholly in the same moment of time. 
In all his extensive acquaintance he had never 
met with such a case, but as a theory, thought it 



294 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

possible. Now, probably I have the pleasure of 
meeting in you, my brother, one of those rare 
cases that Mr. Wesley never knew ; and if you 
were, indeed, ' sanctified wholly ' in the moment 
of your conversion to God, and you have been 
preserved blameless in that state, thank the 
Lord, you are all right. But if, after thirty 
years of such gradual growing as you talk about, 
you are not sanctified wholly now, then you are 
not right, in so far as you fall short of that ex- 
perience. It reduces itself to a simple question of 
fact — are you wholly sanctified to God, or are you 
not ? I will have no discussion with you as to the 
time — the earlier the better. If in the same mo- 
ment of your conversion as you say, better still/ 

" I did not press the question, but he at once 
began to confess his unfaithfulness, and was sorry 
to say that he did not enjoy the experience of 
e entire sanctification.' " — (Infancy and Man- 
hood, pp. 134-135.) And this would be the 
honest testimony of every such professor, who 
had an intelligent idea of the doctrine, and no 
special dogma to sustain. 

The following facts must be admitted by all ; 
even by those who hold that believers are wholly 
sanctified at conversion. 



HOLINESS — HOW RETAINED. 295 

1. Every man believes in Christian perfection 
who believes in conversion, if the two works are 
one in point of time. The difference between 
the one and the other is simply a question of 
when the work is finished. 

2. Every man enjoys entire sanctification, who 
is converted, if God finishes the work at one and 
the same time. It cannot be said by one class 
of another — " These holiness people " are so and 
so ; for they themselves are as fully identified 
with holiness as others, and more so, for they 
profess to have attained it earlier in their ex- 
perience. 

3. Every man professes entire sanctification, 
who professes to be converted, if the two works 
occur at one and the same time. 

Every time such an one professes to have 
passed "from death unto life," he makes the 
fullest profession of heart purity, or perfect love. 
He is the last man to complain of profession. 

4. If entire sanctification is not distinct from 
conversion, then no one should complain of a 
profession of the former blessing, for in so doing 
they complain of a profession of regeneration. 
No Christian can be truthful, if such a doctrine 
be true, who does not make a confession of entire 
sanctification. 



296 SCRIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

5. If entire sanctification is complete in con- 
version, then Christians are never to be urged to 
" cleanse themselves from all filthiness of flesh 
and spirit ;" to " go on unto perfection," and to 
be made " perfect in love." There is no pride, 
no anger, no impatience, no unbelief, no love of 
the world remaining, to be cleansed from. And 
yet the newly justified are known to experience 
all these evidences of depravity in a greater or 
less degree. 

6. If entire sanctification and conversion are 
inseparable, then all who are conscious of not 
being fully cleansed, are to infer that they are 
not converted, and are to begin the work of re- 
pentance anew, having been utterly deceived in 
their former experience. 

These simple facts must make it plain to every 
candid mind, that seeking and professing entire 
sanctification, is both reasonable and safe ; and 
that the contrary doctrine is unreasonable and 
perilous, and should be discarded as a " damn- 
able heresy." (2 Peter ii. 1). 

3. It is objected that Mr. Wesley, counsels great 
caution in the matter of confession, insisting 
that the blessing should not be confessed, except 
on very special occasions. 



HOLINESS — HOW KETAINED. 297 

It must not be forgotten that the circumstances 
attending the labors of Mr.. Wesley differed 
widely from those surrounding us. The doctrine 
of justification by faith and the witness of the 
Spirit were not only stoutly denied by the fore- 
most men in the Church, but those who preached 
and professed the experience were held as rant- 
ing fanatics. Mr. Wesley boldly withstood these, 
and urged his people to declare the grace re- 
ceived, though in doing so they were subjected to 
the most violent opposition. « 

Mr. Wesley felt that to make prominent the 
experience of full salvation, or Christian perfec- 
tion, among a people who could not even under- 
stand or appreciate justification, would be casting 
pearls before swine ; it would only cause them 
to blaspheme the more. He therefore urged his 
people, especially in the earlier years of his 
ministry, not to make a public profession before 
the unconverted, unless the fire was so hot they 
could not resist it, but to confine their professions 
to believers. He no where urges them not to 
profess the experience, only, not to do it in the 
presence of those who could not understand it, 
and would not be benefited by it. Hence he in- 
quires : " Suppose one had attained to this, 
would you advise him to speak of it ? 



298 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

" Answer. At first/ perhaps, lie would scarce 
be able to refrain, the fire would be so hot with- 
in him ;■ his desire to declare the loving-kindness 
of the Lord carrying him away like a torrent. 
But afterwards he might ; and then it would be 
advisable not to speak of it to them that know 
not Grod ; (it is most likely it would only provoke 
them to contradict and blaspheme ;) nor to others 
without some particular reason, without some 
good in view." 

This was very judicious counsel under the 
circumstances. It was written some time before 
the great revival of holiness, which seems to 
have materially modified his views on the sub- 
ject. As the doctrine and experience became 
more generally known and appreciated, the pro- 
fession became more general ; and the duty to 
confess the experience is more and more urged 
upon ministers and people by Mr. Wesley. 

In 1782, he writes to Mr. Benson — " I doubt 
we are not explicit enough, in speaking on full 
sanctification, either in public or private." — 
Works, vol. vii., p. 81. Four years later, he 
urges Mrs. Crosby to " encourage Eichard Black- 
well and Mr. Colly to speak plainly, and to press 
believers to the constant pursuit and earnest ex- 



HOLINESS — HOW RETAINED. 299 

pectation of Christian perfection ;" saying that 
" a general faintness, in this respect, is fallen' 
upon the whole kingdom." 

In 1787, he writes to John King, one of his 
preachers — " It requires a great degree of watch- 
fulness to retain the perfect love of God ; and 
one great means of retaining it is, frankly to de- 
clare what God has given you, and earnestly to 
exhort all the believers you meet with to follow 
after full salvation." — Vol. vii., p. 13. To Miss 
Briggs he writes : u Undoubtedly it would be a 
cross to declare what God has done for your soul ; 
nay, and afterward Satan would accuse you on 
the account, telling you ' you did it out of pride/ 
Yea, and some of your sisters [not to say, 
brothers] would blame you, and perhaps put the 
same construction upon it. [as many are doing.] 
Nevertheless, if you do it with a single eye, it 
will be pleasing to God." — Vol. vii., p. 103. 

Writing to a member of the society on the 
subject of a profession of entire sanctification, 
he says : * I am glad you have at length broken 
through those evil reasonings which so long held 
you down and prevented you from acknowledg- 
ing the things which are freely given you of God." 

Do these counsels indicate that Mr. Wesley 



300 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

was anxious to suppress such testimony ? He 
seems most anxious that his people should make 
known this great salvation. 

4. It is objected that Mr. Wesley did not pro- 
fess entire sanctiftcation, which he would have 
done had it been proper. 

1. Mr. Wesley insisted on his preachers 
preaching the doctrine with great clearness and 
power. Writing of one place, he says : " They 
sadly want more searching preachers ; and those 
that would help them forward by explaining the 
deep things of God." — Vol. vii., p. 776. 

To Mr. Merryweather he writes as follows : 
" My dear Brother, — Where Christian perfection 
is not strongly afid explicitly preached, there is 
seldom any remarkable blessing from God ; and, 
consequently, little addition to the society, and 
little life in the members of it. Therefore, if 
Jacob Eowell is grown faint, and says but little 
about it, do you supply his lack of service. 
Speak, and spare not. Let not regard for any 
man induce you to betray the truth of God. 
Till you press believers to expect full salvation 
now , you must not look for any revival." — 
Works, vol. vi., p. 761. 

Mr. Wesley writes to his brother Charles as 



HOLINESS — HOW RETAINED. 301 

follows : " I find almost all our preachers, in 
every circuit, have done with Christian perfec- 
tion. They say they believe it, but they never 
preach it ; or not once in a quarter. What shall 
be done ? Shall we let it drop, or make a point 
of it ?" On examining one society he says : 
" I was surprised to find fifty members fewer 
than I left in it in October last. One reason is, 
Christian perfection has been little insisted on ; 
and where this is not done, be the preachers 
ever so eloquent, there is little increase either 
in the number or grace of the hearers." Of 
another place he says : " Here I found the work 
of God had gained no ground in this circuit all 
the year. The preachers have given up the 
Methodist testimony. Either they did not speak 
of perfection at all, (the peculiar doctrine com- 
mitted to our trust,) or they speak of it only in 
general terms, without urging believers to go on 
unto perfection. And where this is not earnestly 
done, the work of God does not prosper.'' 

2. Mr. Wesley made the subject a specialty 
in his preaching, and in the establishment of 
meetings for its promotion. 

It is claimed that all religious meetings are 
for the promotion of holiness, and hence special 



302 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

ones are unnecessary. This is true in part only. 
"We do not propose to discuss the question of the 
propriety of such meetings, but simply present 
the historic fact with respect to Mr. Wesley's 
practice. With regard to his preaching on the 
subject, he says, January 29th, 1767, "At five 
in the morning I again began a course of ser- 
mons on Christian perfection ; if haply that 
thirst after it might return which was so general 
a few years ago. Since that time, how deeply 
have we grieved the Holy Spirit of God." This, 
it seems, was not a new and untried method 
with him, " I again began a course of ser- 
mons," showing that he had done the same thing 
before. He seemed anxious that the days of 
1759, '60, '61, '62 and '63 should return, though 
fraught as they were with the George Bell errors 
and disasters. 

In an " address " to the readers of the "Ar- 
minian Magazine" for 1780, twenty years after 
that blessed work commenced, he says : " I have 
still abundant letters in my hands, equal to any 
that have yet been published. Indeed, there is 
a peculiar energy of thought and language in 
many of those which were written in the year 
1759, and a few of the following years, suitable 



HOLINESS — HOW RETAINED. 303 

to that unusual outpouring of the Spirit with 
which both London and many parts of England 
and Ireland were favored, during that happy 
period. Happy I cannot but call it, notwith- 
standing the tares which Satan found means of 
sowing among the wheat. And I cannot but 
adopt the prayer of a pious man in Scotland, 
upon a similar occasion : ' Lord, if it please Thee, 
work the same work again, without the blemishes ; 
but if that cannot be, though it be with all the 
blemishes, work the same work/ ,! 

Mr. Wesley established special meetings for 
the promotion of holiness in believers. " The 
Methodists were divided into four Societies; 
namely, the United Societies, the Bands, the 
Select Societies, and the Penitents. The United 
Societies , who were the most numerous, consisted 
of awakened persons. The Bands were selected 
from these, and consisted of those who were sup- 
posed to have remission of sins. The Select 
Societies were taken from the Bands, and were 
composed of those who seemed to walk in the 
light of God's countenance. The Penitents were 
those, who, for the present, were fallen from 
grace." — Tyerman, vol. i., pp. 444, 445. 

Of the Select Societies, Dr. A. Stevens says : 



304 SCKIPTUKAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

(History of Methodism, vol. ii. p. 458) " Mr, 
Wesley established meetings for penitents and 
backsliders, and Select Societies for persons who 
were especially interested in the subject of Chris- 
tian perfection/' 

Mr. Wesley gives the following account of the 
origin of these Select Societies : "I desired a 
small number of such as appeared to be in this 
state, [viz., continually walking in the light of 
God, and having fellowship with the Father and 
with the Son Jesus Christ] to spend an hour 
with me every Monday morning. My design 
was, not only to direct them how to press after 
perfection, but also to have a "select company, to 
whom I might unbosom myself on all occasions 
without reserve ; and whom I could propose to 
all their brethren as a pattern of love, of holi- 
ness, and of good works." — {Vol. v. pp. 184- 
185.) 

These Select Societies, it will be observed, 
were exclusively meetings for the promotion of 
holiness among those who were already in fellow- 
ship with God. 

None" but believers were allowed to attend the 
Band Meetings ; and the questions propounded 
to each member on his admission, show that their 



HOLINESS— HOW RETAINED. 305 

justification was not doubtful. Some of these 
questions were as follows : 

il 1. Have you forgiveness of sins ? 

" 2. Have you peace with God, through our 
Lord Jesus Christ ? 

"3. Have you the witness of God's Spirit 
with your spirit, that you are a child of God ? 

" 4. Is the love of God shed abroad in your 
heart ? 

u 5. Has no sin, inward or outward, dominion 
over you ? " 

If they could answer these questions affirm- 
atively, they were admitted to membership in 
these Bands, as seekers of holiness. These are 
the persons whom Mr. "Wesley was ever urging 
to go on unto perfection, and to expect it at any 
moment. 

Those who hold special meetings for the pro- 
motion of holiness, it would seem, follow in the 
footsteps of Mr. Wesley. 

3. Mr. Wesley's helpers made a clear and di- 
rect profession of entire sanctification, with his 
full approval, and often by his special request. 
As examples, take Rev. Alexander Mather. — 

Mr. M was one of Mr. Wesley's most 

honored and successful ministers. He requested 
20 



306 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

him to write an account of his Christian experi- 
ence for publication in the Arminian Magazine. 
He did so, so far as it related to his conversion ; 
but he did not make mention of the work of 
entire sanctification. Mr. Wesley published this 
account in April, 1780. Of Mr. Mathers 
omission, he says : " After reading and consider- 
ing the foregoing account, I observed to Mr. 
Mather, that he had wholly omitted one con- 
siderable branch of his experience, touching 
what is properly termed, s The great salvation/ 
He wrote me a full and particular answer, the 
substance of which I here subjoin." Then fol- 
lows a clear statement of the work of heart 
purity. Mr. Wesley closes the account with 
these words : " I earnestly desire, that all our 
preachers would seriously consider the preceding 
account. And let them not be content, never 
to speak against the great salvation, either in 
public or private ; and never to discourage, either 
by word or deed, any that think they have at- 
tained it. No ; but prudently encourage them, 
to hold fast whereunto they have attained. And 
strongly and explicitly exhort all believers, to 
go on unto perfection ; yea, to -expect full salva- 
tion from sin every moment, by mere grace, 
through faith." 



HOLINESS — HOW KETAINED. 307 

If Mr. Wesley was opposed to a public con- 
fession, why was he constantly calling out these 
experiences and publishing them to the world ? 
This he never would have done had he been op- 
posed to such public profession. 

John Fletcher, a man held in high esteem by 
Mr. Wesley, had a clear experience of heart 
purity, and relates it with an earnestness of 
spirit, worthy of universal imitation. 

Hester Ann Rogers records the meeting and 
the experience. After confessing that he had lost 
the blessing three times by refusing to confess it, 
he says : " I declare unto you, in the presence of 
God, the Holy Trinity, I am now ' dead indeed unto 
sin.' I do not say * I am crucified with Christ/ 
because some of our well-meaning brethren say, 
By this can only be meant a gradual dying ; but 
I profess unto you, I am dead unto sin and alive 
unto God ! And remember, all this is i through 
Jesus Christ our Lord/ He is my Prophet, 
Priest, and King ; my indwelling holiness ; my 
all in all." — Hester Ann Rogers, p. 135. 

This is the kind of testimony which Mr. Wes- 
ley is ever urging his people to give. 

He commends Dr. Clarke for " insisting upon 
full and present salvation/' telling him that he 



308 SORJPTUBAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

" need not wonder " that " it is opposed, not only 
by formalists, but by half Methodists." — ( Vol. 
vii., p. 203.) Four years later, and within one 
year of his triumphant death, he says to Dr. 
Clarke, that he " doubts whether a local preacher 
or leader" who speaks " directly or indirectly/' 
against "Christian perfection," "should con- 
tinue in the society. Because he that can speak 
thus in our congregations cannot be an honest 
man."— (Vol vii., p. 206.) 

4. Mr. Wesley's own confession. 

It is claimed that Mr. Wesley did not confess 
the experience. One thing is very clear : If a 
minister in these times should speak of entire 
sanctification as Mr. Wesley did, he would be 
classed among the loudest professors of holiness. 
Hear him : 

" I dislike the saying, that this was not known 
or taught among us till within two or three years. 
I grant you did not know it. You have over 
and over denied instantaneous sanctification to 
me ; but I have known and taught it above these 
twenty years." (Vol. iv., p. 140.) 

" Many years since, I saw that ' without holi- 
ness no man shall see the Lord/ I began by 
following after it and inciting all with whom I 



HOLINESS — HOW RETAINEI. 309 

had any intercourse to do the same. Ten years 
after, God gave me a clearer view than I had 
before of the way how to attain it, namely, by 
faith in the Son of God. And immediately I 
declared to all, ' We are saved from sin, we are 
made holy by faith/ This I testified in private, 
in public, in print ; and God confirmed it by a 
thousand witnesses. I have continued to declare 
this for above thirty years ; and God has con- 
tinued to confirm the word of grace." (Vol. vii., 
p. 38.) This was written in 1771. In 1744, 
nearly thirty years before, he writes : "In the 
evening while I was reading prayers at Snows- 
fields, I found such light and strength as I never 
remember to have had before. I saw every 
thought, as well as action or word, just as it was 
rising in my heart, and whether it was right 
before God, or tainted with pride or selfishness. 
I never knew before — I mean not at this time — 
what it was to be still before God." 

" I waked the next morning by the grace of 
God in the same spirit ; and about eight, being 
with two or three that believed in Jesus, I felt 
such an awe and tender sense of the presence of 
God, as greatly confirmed me therein ; so that 
God was before me all the day long. I sought 



310 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

and found Him. in every place ; and could truly 
say ; when I lay down at night, - now I have 
lived a day.' " (Vol. iii., p. 324.) 

Who can say ; in the light of these utterances, 
that Mr. Wesley did not confess the experience 
of heart purity ? 

We have dwelt thus long on the subject of 
confession because it is considered by many un- 
necessary, if not harmful. Let all who would 
retain the perfect love of God, hold fast their 
profession. " The devil," says Mr. Bramwell, 
" told me that I had better not profess it. But 
in preaching that night the temptation was re- 
moved, and my soul was again filled with glory 
and with God. I then declared to the people 
what God had done for my soul; and I have 
done so on every proper occasion since that time, 
believing it to be a duty incumbent upon me. 
I think such a blessing cannot be retained with- 
out professing it at every fit opportunity ; for 
thus we glorify God, and with the mouth make 
confession unto salvation." — Life, pp. 37, 38. 

2. To retain the perfect love of God there must 
be a life of simple trust. 

Nothing in the Christian life is a substitute 
for faith. Feelings are not to be ignored. They 



HOLINESS — HOW RETAINED. .311 

exist as the result, or effect of faith. A religion 
without feeling is formalism : a religion exclu- 
sively of feeling is fanaticism. But a religion 
of faith, working by love, fires formalism, and 
imparts common sense to fanaticism. 

The Christian life should be uniform — not ebb- 
ing and flowing — now up and now down. If 
we walk by faith, ours will be a uniform life ; if 
by feeling, then it will be as changing as the 
winds or tides. Health, education and natural 
temperament, combine to modify our feelings. 
Influenced by these we are ever changing. But 
faith, while it rests upon the promise, knows no 
change. 

We are prone to measure our piety by our 
emotions. If we are full of religious emotion, 
we fancy ourselves full of faith ; if we are desti- 
tute of such emotions, we judge ourselves to be 
void of faith. Such a life is, of necessity, most 
unsatisfactory, as we are never able to determine 
our exact spiritual latitude and longitude. 

Mr. Fletcher, a man of an intensely emotional 
nature, exhorts believers to "exercise faith, in- 
dependent of all feeling, in a naked promise, 
bringing with you but a distracted heart." 

" Storms may gather over the heads of the 



312 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

fully sanctified," says Dr. G. Peck, " dangers 
may threaten them, tempests of adversity may 
actually break upon them — they may see no way 
of escape ; but though not able to walk by sight } 
they can walk by faith, and so they are not 
moved." 

" The Lord has taught me/' says Lady Max- 
well, " that it is by faith, and not joy, that I 
must live. He has, in a measure, often enabled 
me strongly to act faith in Jesus for sanctifica- 
tion, even in the absence of all comfort. This 
has diffused a heaven of sweetness through my 
soul, and brought with it the powerful witness 
of purity." 

The holy Fenelon, whose whole life was one 
of perfect trust, says, " Naked faith, alone, is a 
sure guard against illusion. When we rest upon 
God only in pure and naked faith, in the sim- 
plicity of the gospel, receiving the consolations 
which He sends, but dwelling in none ; following 
the light of the faith of the present moment ; 
then we are indeed in a way that is but little 
subject to illusion." 

To walk by faith is to hear God when we can- 
not see Him, and to know God when we cannot 
feel Him. Faith can hear the Divine whispers 



HOLINESS — HOW KETAINED. 313 

in the hush of the soul as satisfactorily as when 
He thunders by in the storm of emotion. Faith 
may know the presence of the Comforter though 
no chord consciously vibrates in the soul. 

a Faith lends its realizing light ; 

The clouds disperse, the shadows fly ; 
The Invisible appears in sight, 
And God is seen by mortal eye." 

Faith is " substance" — faith is " evidence" 
It is just along here that faith gives out, if at 
all ; for it is just here that God tests the strength 
of our trust. To love God for Christ's sake ; to 
serve Him for the love we bear to Him, and not 
for the pleasure of the service, the intoxication 
of delight which we experience, is not an ordi- 
nary experience. To do this we must be lifted 
far above the common plane of Christian life. 

Jeremy Taylor represents Ivo as making an 
embassy to St. Louis ; who, on meeting a grave, 
sad woman, with fire in one hand, and water in 
the other, inquired what these symbols might 
mean. The strange woman answered, " My pur- 
pose is, with my fire to burn Paradise, and with 
my water to quench the flames of hell, that men 
may serve God without incentives, of hope and 
fear, but purely for the love of God." It must 



314 SCBIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

not be understood that we ignore the motive of 
self-interest. Jesus appeals to this, in order to 
induce men to serve Him. But it must be ad- 
mitted that this is the lowest motive which can 
be addressed to men. The highest motive is love 
— pure love. " We love Him because He first 
loved us." 

Nor would we be understood as speaking 
against feeling, only against trusting to so un- 
certain an evidence. Trials will come; tempta- 
tions will assail you ; dark clouds of adversity 
will envelope you ; your soul, like the Master's, 
may be " sorrowful," and " very heavy." Satan 
may suggest that you are not as clear in your 
experience as formerly; that you have slipped 
somewhere, though you are unable to see where ; 
that you had better give it up and commence 
again. Hark ! that is from beneath. Keep 
looking up, though there be not a star visible in 
the whole heavens. Continue saying while you 
look, " Thy will be done;" and He who is 
" mighty to save " will reveal Himself to you. 

It has been said that the heart sometimes ex- 
periences a state it is not easy to describe. There 
is no emotion of any kind, no active desire, no 
joy, no conscious peace, no misery, no guilt. A 



HOLINESS — HOW EETAINED. 315 

desert is not more destitute of flowers than is the 
spirit of emotions. The soul is like the clear 
"blue vault of heaven on a winter day, when no 
cloud is seen, and no winds are abroad. At this 
absence of emotion we are often alarmed, just as 
a traveller on a lonely mountain summit some- 
times is terrified at the very silence which there 
reigns. It seems more dreadful to him than the 
loudest thunder. If we set ourselves to enjoy 
the highest results of Christian experience, and 
to be wholly the Lord's, the question must soon 
be settled, whether we love God as a means to 
our happiness, or for His own sake. Alas, how 
many stumble and fall when the Divine Shepherd 
leads them into the desert, to wean them from 
themselves and the world, and purge from the 
soul all its sensuous and earthly images ! This 
is the crisis in the experience of the hidden life. 
It is a spiritual Rubicon. If we cross it, victory 
and glory await us in the future. 

3. To retain the perfect love of God we must 
be abundant in good works. 

The world judge of our piety more by what 
we do than by what we profess. We may be 
abundant in good works without piety, but we 
cannot be pious without being abundant in good 
works. 



316 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

We must be diligent in our efforts to save the 
perishing. We must go beyond the circle of 
those who are in sympathy with us, to those who ' 
hate us and scorn our message. We should enter 
heartily into all the plans of the Church to save 
souls, if they do not fully accord with our views 
of what is best, and thus give evidence that our 
hearts beat in sympathy with the work of God 
in all its departments, though it may not be con- 
ducted according to our plans. 

We should not fail to give of our means for 
the support of the ministry of the word. No 
man can withhold his money when it is needed 
to relieve suffering humanity or carry the gospel 
to the perishing, and retain the blessing of entire 
sanctificatipn. He who is reluctant to part with 
his gold, has reason to fear that he has not 
parted with all his sins. A stingy man had 
better not profess holiness, as no one will believe 
that he possesses it. He who takes pleasure in 
hoarding wealth finds little pleasure in going on 
unto perfection. 

4. To retain the blessing of heart purity, we 
must avoid the appearance of evil. 

That which has the appearance of evil, though 
not intended, is evil to those who judge by ap- 



HOLINESS — HOW BETAINED. 317 

pearances. Undue devotion to business, may- 
gain for us the reputation of being worldly- 
minded. Extreme rigor in pressing our claims, 
may gain for us the reputation of being hard- 
faced and unmerciful. A boisterous manner may- 
cause some to set us down as fanatics. Our dress 
may be of so fashionable a character as to induce 
others to regard it as the fruit of pride. Our 
motives may be good, but pure motives will not 
neutralize the influence of such appearances 
upon the minds of those who cannot see the 
motive. 

Great damage has come to the cause of Christ 
by making prominent that which is non-essential. 
Such as power to heal the sick. "We are not in- 
fidel enough to deny that God heals the sick in 
answer to prayer. But when this is made pro- 
minent, and put forth as a miracle-working 
power equal to saving souls from death, it is 
then that God is dishonored. Healing the sick 
is a small matter in comparison with saving a 
soul. If any have this power let them exercise 
it in all humility, but let them remember that in 
comparison with soul saving it is as the burning 
taper to the brightness of the King of day. 

The cause of holiness has received damage 



318 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

from the practice of the laying on of hands, by 
which it is claimed that the Holy Ghost is com- 
municated. "We cannot believe that such a 
practice is authorized by the Word of God, or 
that it was ever practiced except by inspired 
apostles. 

Great damage has come to the cause of holi- 
ness also, by its friends and advocates seeking 
for some unknown physical manifestations through 
which, by some mysterious connection with Jesus, 
they may secure immunity from that which was 
natural to the race when walking with God " in 
righteousness and true holiness/' before sin 
poisoned all the channels of our nature. Such 
a doctrine will lead to others which are frought 
with disaster. 

Do not run after new theories, or engage in 
new and unheard-of practices. They will cripple 
you in your work, and in time utterly destroy 
your usefulness. Be content with having a clean 
heart filled with the Spirit. This is all you need. 
This will fit you for usefulness. 

5. Finally y if you would retain the perfect 
love of God, do not consider heart purity a con- 
summation. 

A soul may be holy without being established 



HOLINESS — HOW RETAINED. 319 

in holiness. There is childhood in sanctification. 
He who ceases to grow in holiness, ceases to 
enjoy heart purity. Purity of heart is a stepping- 
stone to religious development. Nearly the 
whole of growth is beyond heart purity, as 
growth in grace belongs pre-eminently to the 
sanctified state. All obstructions to growth being- 
removed, there is no reason why the pure in 
heart should not make more rapid progress than 
when in a lower state of grace. 

Unless the soul pants for more of God, more 
of that fulness of which it has been made the 
partaker, in being made pure ; unless faith seeks 
and secures enlargement, and love increases in 
intensity, the grace already given will not only 
not be retained, but there will be absolute loss. 
We shall have missed the connection, and im- 
mediately retrograde on the downward plane 
until we have passed the point of beginning. 
Let us then not only i( stand fast in the liberty 
wherewith God has made us free," but " add to 
our faith virtue ; and to virtue knowledge; and 
to knowledge temperance; and to temperance 
patience ; and to patience godliness ; and to god- 
liness brotherly kindness ; and to brotherly kind- 
ness charity. For if these things be in you, and 



320 SCEIPTUEAL VIEWS OF HOLINESS. 

abound, they make you that ye shall neither be 
barren [idle — margin] nor unfruitful in the 
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 
i. 5-8.) 

"Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding 
abundantly above all that we ask or think, ac- 
cording to the power that worketh in us, unto 
Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus 
throughout all ages, world without end." And 
" the God of peace, that brought again from the 
dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the 
sheep, through the blood of the everlasting cove- 
nant, make you perfect in every good work to do 
His will, working in you that which is well- 
pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to 
whom be glory forever and ever. Amen." 



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